Despite being at the height of their fame, The Jimi Hendrix Experience was booed as they walked on stage for their final show on September 6, 1970. The band’s leader and namesake didn’t mind. He was just following orders, and if the audience wanted to jeer, his only request was that they do it in key.

If anyone in the audience had known that it would be the last time they would see Hendrix with his full band, there might have been a greater sense of reverence from the crowd as opposed to their tired, rain-soaked frustration.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience Played Their Final Show

The States had Woodstock. The U.K. had the Isle of Wight. And in 1970, Germany threw its hat in the ring with a three-day music festival on the island of Fehmarn in the Baltic Sea. Somewhat fittingly, the Love and Peace Festival faced similar problems that its influences did. Accommodations struggled to support the 25,000 festival goers. Incessant rain caused electrical issues and made the festival grounds a giant muddy mess. Lineup delays led to angry crowds who pointed their frustrations at the musicians on stage, including the festival’s headlining act, The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Hendrix and his band were originally scheduled to perform the Saturday night slot of the three-day festival. However, torrential downpours made it unsafe to plug in anything on stage, forcing the band to delay their set until the following day. When The Experience walked on stage, the audience started to boo. Addressing the crowd for the first time, Hendrix said into the mic, “I don’t give a f*** if you boo, as long as you boo in key, you mothers.”

The guitarist didn’t have to worry about off-key boos for very long, as the band quickly warmed the crowd up and made them forget that they had been sitting in a muddy field overnight. The Experience easily won the crowd over with hits like “Purple Haze”, Hendrix’s rendition of “All Along the Watchtower”, and “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”.

When the band finally took their bow and walked off stage, no one had any way of knowing that it would be the last time they did so.

Tragically, the Rock Icon Died Days Later

After The Jimi Hendrix Experience played their final show, the musicians headed back to London. Hendrix died days later on September 18. That morning, his girlfriend, Monika Dannemann, woke to find Hendrix unconscious and unresponsive. She called paramedics, who arrived at their apartment around 11:30 am. By 12:45 pm, doctors at St. Mary Abbots Hospital pronounced the rock ‘n’ roll legend dead.

Hendrix had technically played for the last time two nights before his death, but he didn’t have his band with him at the time. The guitarist was simply sitting in with Eric Burdon (of Animals fame) and his new band, War, at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. Thus, the Love and Peace Festival in Germany—which felt anything but loving and peaceful over the rainy, frustrating, and obstacle-filled weekend—would prove to be the last Jimi Hendrix Experience show ever.

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