Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, Jimi Hendrix Experience Fillmore Auditorium - Part 2: Hoepla

This poster was designed in 1967, apparantly at the request of Jimi Hendrix himself.

In this guise it is an advertisement for a series of concerts at the Fillmore West in June 1967.

Fillmore Auditorium June 20-26

There is a variant which omits these dates.

These concerts were booked for Hendrix before he flew to California for the Monterey Pop Festival which was to make his name in the USA. The festival was on 16 - 18 June with the Jimi Hendrix Experience playing on the evening of the 18th. The concerts at the Fillmore were planned to be a three-performers event with the Experience on first, then the jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo and then headed by the Jefferson Airplane. This is the original poster for the event:

Fillmore Summer Series by Clifford Charles Seeley

However, it did not go quite that way and there are several explanations of what happened. It appears that Hendrix was on an amazing roll following the festival and he blew everyone off the stage, the Airplane took fright and either pulled out blaming Grace Slick's throat problems allowing Janis Joplin and Big Brother to step in and open, with Hendrix at the top of the bill, or the Airplane and Hendrix swopped positions on the bill. I find it difficult to understand how these two can recall events as they do:

Sam Andrew (guitarist, Big Brother): "I remember that date very well, which could only mean that I was there in a professional capacity. I remember Gabor Szabo and the whole deal, so I am sure that we filled in. I know Big Brother was there."

     

Jorma Kaukonen (guitars, vocals, Jefferson Airplane): “I can not imagine that we would have dumped a top-billing spot, no matter what. Or dumped a gig. I find that really hard to believe."

But, whoever else was playing, the Jimi Hendrix Experience played from the 20th to the 25th, not the 26th as the Hapshash and the Coloured Coat poster has it. However, the Experience did play a free concert in The Panhandle (an SF park) on the 26th.

There is yet another version of this Hapshash and the Coloured Coat poster which was used for a backdrop for the Jimi Hendrix Experience in November 1967 when they played on the Dutch TV programme Hoepla.

This programme became famous for shocking the Dutch public with the nude 'performances' of Phil Bloom and the rock bands who played the show.

Phil Bloom having read her newspaper

There are a few photographs of the Jimi Hendrix Experience playing Hoepla and I have pulled some together, especially those showing the enlarged poster. The set was filmed in the morning of 10 November. There are a few which may be staged with the presenter (Roselie Peters) in the foreground:

Roselie with the Jimi Hendrix Experience from the Hoepla book

Enlarged poster visible behind Mitch Mitchell

A few others before or after the performance:

And then others 'in concert':

From these photographs the poster looks to be a perfect enlargement, although it is clearly black and white. It does look as though the right hand edge has been cut off as a silhouetted tree and the right hand border are missing together with the tip of Jimi's bow and the flights on his arrow.  

It would be fabulous to have this wonderful enlargement.

Following the TV gig, The Jimi Hendrix Experience travelled to play the Hippy Happy festival at Ahoy, Rotterdam later that day.