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In 1967 Jimi Hendrix was the opening act for The Monkees (yes, really)
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/micky-dolenz-recalls-illfated-monkees-tour-with-opening-act-jimi-hendrix-yeah-it-was-kind-of-embarrassing-011357916.html
And one of the first mainstream rock acts to recognize Hendrix’s greatness was the Monkees. Unfortunately, the Monkees’ young fans weren’t quite as enthusiastic when that TV band’s Micky Dolenz came up with the seemingly bizarre idea to hire Hendrix as the opening act for the Monkees’ first U.S. tour in 1967.
Hendrix ended up playing only seven of that tour’s 29 dates, dropping out after having to contend nightly with thousands of nasty, impatient, jeering teenyboppers. “Yeah, it was kind of embarrassing,” Dolenz admits to Yahoo Entertainment. “Jimi would go, ‘Purple haze!’ and the kids would be like, ‘We want Davy!’ He’d go, ‘Foxy lady!’ and they’d yell, ‘We. Want. The. Monkees! We. Want. The. Monkees!’ He was coming up against that very typical opening-act dilemma for anyone touring with a big headliner, really.”
The odd pairing might have been doomed from the start, given the two artists’ very different audiences. But Dolenz had been a fan of Hendrix since the guitar god was still known as “Jimmy James” and performing in Greenwich Village nightclubs with the Blue Flames. “It was 1966 or so, and the Monkees were in New York on a press junket,” he recalls of the first time he saw Hendrix live. “Someone said, ‘You gotta come down to the Village and check this cat out.’ The actual act was, I think, the John Hammond Band or something. But when we went down there, I remember sitting in the front row and there was this young kid, and he was playing guitar with his teeth! I didn't even know his name at the time. I don't even know if he was introduced, but he was going under the name Jimmy James at that point. He was just great.”
snip
Hendrix apparently did care what people thought, as he decided to quit the Monkees’ tour just eight days later, after dates in Miami, North Carolina, and a three-night run at New York City’s Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. Later, a seemingly bitter Hendrix told British music paper the NME that he’d been replaced by “Mickey Mouse.” Dolenz can neither deny nor confirm the longstanding rumor that Hendrix flipped the bird at the combative crowd during that final NYC show, though he quips, “I've never seen evidence of that rumor, but if it's true, he certainly ain’t the first person to flip off an audience.”
Hendrix ended up playing only seven of that tour’s 29 dates, dropping out after having to contend nightly with thousands of nasty, impatient, jeering teenyboppers. “Yeah, it was kind of embarrassing,” Dolenz admits to Yahoo Entertainment. “Jimi would go, ‘Purple haze!’ and the kids would be like, ‘We want Davy!’ He’d go, ‘Foxy lady!’ and they’d yell, ‘We. Want. The. Monkees! We. Want. The. Monkees!’ He was coming up against that very typical opening-act dilemma for anyone touring with a big headliner, really.”
The odd pairing might have been doomed from the start, given the two artists’ very different audiences. But Dolenz had been a fan of Hendrix since the guitar god was still known as “Jimmy James” and performing in Greenwich Village nightclubs with the Blue Flames. “It was 1966 or so, and the Monkees were in New York on a press junket,” he recalls of the first time he saw Hendrix live. “Someone said, ‘You gotta come down to the Village and check this cat out.’ The actual act was, I think, the John Hammond Band or something. But when we went down there, I remember sitting in the front row and there was this young kid, and he was playing guitar with his teeth! I didn't even know his name at the time. I don't even know if he was introduced, but he was going under the name Jimmy James at that point. He was just great.”
snip
Hendrix apparently did care what people thought, as he decided to quit the Monkees’ tour just eight days later, after dates in Miami, North Carolina, and a three-night run at New York City’s Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. Later, a seemingly bitter Hendrix told British music paper the NME that he’d been replaced by “Mickey Mouse.” Dolenz can neither deny nor confirm the longstanding rumor that Hendrix flipped the bird at the combative crowd during that final NYC show, though he quips, “I've never seen evidence of that rumor, but if it's true, he certainly ain’t the first person to flip off an audience.”
10 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
When I was a kid, Herman's Hermits was the first group I liked - and when I was older, my friend turned me on to The Who! 
And I once saw Bruce Springsteen in a fairly small venue. When my brother was at the University of Vermont, Springsteen performed in the gym, and my brother invited me! I couldn't hear for a couple of days after that... 
