On the Road with Janis Joplin by John Byrne Cooke Read Free Book Online Page B

approaches rapture.
    The ending brings the crowd to its feet as one with a joyous roar that must be audible in downtown Monterey.
    The audience pelts the stage with flowers. Pink orchids pile up at the feet of the musicians. They bow time and again, palms together, beatific, deeply moved by the response. The trio leaves the stage. They are called back. The waves of applause wash the arena. The ovation promises to go on until it’s time for the evening concert. In the film, the applause will continue for almost two minutes, which seems like a very long time. Now, in real life, it lasts much longer.
    Finally Shankar holds up his arms and the audience quiets. “I want you to know how much I love you all and how happy I am to be loved by you,” he says. He picks up a handful of orchids, throws them back into the crowd, bows for the last time, and the grateful people let him go.
    It is a singular triumph among many on a triumphant weekend.
    I cherish one image, a mental film clip, from Sunday afternoon after Ravi’s transcendent set. Strolling the fairgrounds, I see a Monterey motorcycle cop cruising along a roadway, greeted everywhere with smiles and smiling nonstop himself, the whip antenna on the back of the bike waving brightly, pinkly, adorned from bottom to top with skewered orchids.
    —
    S UNDAY EVENING IS Big Brother’s chance to prove they can repeat their Saturday sensation. For this performance, Janis decks herself out in a gold lamé pantsuit and she sings as if her future depends on it, which it does. This time around, many in the audience know what to expect, but “Ball and Chain” knocks them out all over again and once more they roar their admiration. As Janis leaves the stage, she raises her arms and skips with joy. She knows she nailed it for the cameras.
    “The best time of all was Monterey. It was one of the highest points of my life. Those were real flower children. They really were beautiful and gentle and completely open, man. Ain’t nothing like that ever gonna happen again.”
    Janis Joplin
    And still, there is more to come. The Who are straight from two days at the Fillmore. Giddy in their first rush of California gooniness, they turn loose high-volume British rock and roll—“Substitute,” “Summertime Blues,” and a couple more—and destroy most of their equipment at the end of their last song, “My Generation,” shocking some and pissing off the sound crew, who dash onstage to save the microphones, but the band is so off-the-wall, out-of-control, to-hell-with-the-sensible-limits that we just watch, agog, and wait for the stage to be cleaned up before the next act. Being outrageous is part of the countercultural ethic, but our interest in this Götterdämmerung acting out will diminish when we learn it’s a regular part of their act.They trash the same amp at every show, and smash up cheap guitars.
    And besides, they can’t top Jimi Hendrix, who carries
outrageous
to new heights. Pennebaker and I chanced to be on hand for Jimi’s sound check this morning, in the empty arena, and we took note that this is a guitar player of exceptional ability. On Sunday night the cameras are on Jimi from the start of his set, but we don’t expect another performance that will create a sensation to equal Janis and Big Brother.
    Jimi plays the guitar behind his back, over his head, with his teeth. He plays the longest set of the night. He plays B. B. King’s “Rock Me Baby,” the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” He grabs songs from across the pop spectrum and makes each one his own. He sneaks “Strangers in the Night” into his guitar solo on “Wild Thing” . . . he turns a somersault on the stage without missing a note . . . he makes a little bow before he lays his guitar on the stage, squirts it with lighter fluid, sets it afire, urges the flames higher with his hands, and then, almost regretfully, smashes the guitar and