The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Magic Boy: Live At Berkeley [First Show] (2xLP)

The Jimi Hendrix Experience's Magic Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live at Berkeley (First Show) captures the trio's first Berkeley Community Theatre set from May 30, 1970, a performance that circulated in fragments for decades before this official release. Recorded only a few months before Hendrix's death, it hears him with drummer Mitch Mitchell from the original Experience and bassist Billy Cox, whose presence links this band directly to the recent Band of Gypsys era.

What makes this set especially interesting is how clearly it catches Hendrix in transition. Alongside familiar live firepower such as “Fire,” “Purple Haze” and “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” he works through newer material including “Freedom” and “Ezy Ryder” before those songs had reached their final studio form. “Message to Love” and “Machine Gun” bring in the tougher, more open-ended feel of his early-1970 repertoire, showing just how far he was pushing beyond the original Experience template.

This edition presents the concert in its original running order for the first time and uses a new remix by Eddie Kramer from the original multi-track tapes. That matters here: Berkeley has long been known through standout posthumous appearances of “Hear My Train A Comin'” and “Johnny B. Goode,” plus film extracts, but Magic Boy finally frames the first show as a complete performance rather than a handful of legendary excerpts.