The holidays were over in every sense of the word - not that Jimi's schedule ever lightened up for long. Flying back to London the day after new year's; helping girlfriend Kathy move their possessions into their new apartment on London's Brook Street; interviews, television, recording sessions... The Experience were due to begin their next European tour in Gothenburg on January 8, and they didn't even have time to apply for their visas until the day before they were scheduled to leave.

Of course, there were some people around who were convinced the band left everything until the last minute, because their own existence was so precarious that it was pointless trying to plan for the future. The British press in particular was obsessed with the possibility of The Experience breaking up: Disc & Music Echo habitually referred to Noel Redding as "ex-Hendrix Experience"; both the New Musical Express and Melody Maker chased the rumors through their pages every week; and Noel, for his part, made no secret of the fact that he'd already formed his own new band, Fat Mattress.

Only the band members, of course, knew precisely how tenuous their internal bond had become in the last few months; and only manager Mike Jeffrey knew precisely what legal safeguards and contractual pitfalls were in place, to keep the band from imploding on the spot. And the longest rod he had for their backs was the road, an eternity of gigging which now stretched through to the summer.

In business terms, of course, that was the best thing he could do. Any dissent from the band members, any attempt to walk away while bookings remained to be fulfilled, would result in a legal storm of Biblical proportions. Creatively, however, the maneuver was madness, stifling the band to the point of stagnation. As The Experience prepared to take the stage for the first time in 1969, at the Lorensburg Cirkus in Gothenburg, it was in the knowledge that the only "new" number in their entire set was simply a hurriedly rearranged version of "Hear My Train A Comin'." Everything else had been on autopilot for longer than anyone cared to remember.

The Experience's disaffection shone through in other ways, too. Onstage, producer Chas Chandler later ruminated, the group had physically ceased to function as a group - it was three individual soloists now, each one playing whatever came to mind, in a desperate bid to keep his own interest alive. "You could just see there was trouble in the band. There was friction, it wasn't together, it just didn't work." Backstage at the Cirkus, when Jimi asked Chandler to take over The Experience's management himself, the answer was a resounding no. Only a madman would want to try looking after a band that close to disintegration.

On January 9, the day after the Gothenburg show, the Experience made the short hop to Stockholm, where they were scheduled to play that same evening. They landed at 2:25, then headed straight into town, to the Hotel Carlton.

Even before the concert, they had a full schedule. Journalist Ulla Lundstrom would be waiting to interview Jimi in his hotel room, almost as soon as the band checked in. Ninety minutes later, all three musicians were scheduled to attend a press reception. Then there'd just be time to grab some food, before they motored down to the Stockholm Concert hall - The Konserthuset - before the first of the evening's two shows.

The bulk of The Experience's European shows this time around would see them supported by Jimi's pets, Eire Apparent. Stockholm, and the following night in Copenhagen, Denmark, however, would offer up some far more esoteric fare, in the shape of Jethro Tull.

Few people listening to Jethro Tull today, or at any other time in the near 20 years since their landmark Aqualung album, would be prepared for the sight and sound of the band that went out with The Experience. Just one year into their recording career; little more than three months after the release of their first album, Jethro Tull was a wildly improvisational blues band, 12 bar prog rockers with a sound that was discomforting to even contemplate. But they were also reeling from the departure, just before Christmas, of Mick Abrahams, the stylish guitarist around whose fluid vision the entire group revolved.

Faced with a string of looming prestige-packed gigs, of which the Hendrix shows were only the tip, Tull scooped the unknown Tony Iommi out of a Birmingham club band called Earth, just in time for their appearance on the Rolling Stones' Rock'n'Roll Circus. Iommi really didn't work out, though Tull's call came just as his own band was preparing to change its name to Black Sabbath, and the cast iron riffs which he was beginning to trademark had no business interplaying with

Tull's piercing flutes and abrupt signature changes. Iommi was followed, very briefly, by the Nice's Davey O'List, before a young, nervous, Martin Barre turned up to audition, so anxious to impress that he forgot to bring his guitar lead! Tull vocalist Ian Anderson reckons he spent the entire audition with his ear pressed up against Barre's guitar, and never did figure out if he was any good or not. But there wasn't time to try and find someone else - the guitarist who might not actually have been able to play, was going to make his big league public debut sharing a stage with a man who could play guitar in his sleep.

Taking the stage following a short performance by a local band, The Outsiders, Tull's opening set was designed around Barre's nerves and inexperience - a state of mind which was only exacerbated by local radio's decision to record the entire show for broadcast a few days later. Opening with "My Sunday Feeling," from Tull's debut album, the band then threw Barre straight into the limelight by premiering his gentle "Martin's Tune." "To Be Sad Is A Mad Way To Be," "Back To The Family," "Dharma For One," and "Song For Jeffery" followed, but the highlight of the set - many people still call it a highlight of Tull's entire existence - was a 14 minute version of "Nothing Is Easy," with Anderson wailing away on harmonica, and the entire band exploding like a firework party.

The Swedes went crazy, and kept the fever pitch blazing through the change-over period. By the time the evening's MC was back onstage, he could scarcely be heard above the noise, but he got his introduction out anyway... "time now for a little bit of Electric Church Music - yeah, that's how the band like to call their music. And the band... The JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE."

The band should have kicked into gear straight away, the music melding with the audience's applause. Instead, Jimi ambled to the microphone and said hello. "How y'all doing? I'd like to dedicate this show to the American Deserters Society" - Sweden, historically neutral through even European wars, was a favorite destination for American draft dodgers. Then he improvised a touch of "Taps," before returning to the microphone for an even longer speech.

The show, he announced, was dedicated to Eva, a fan the band had never met, but who was a goddess from Asgard regardless, she "keeps sending roses!" In fact, Jimi had met her a year before, and they would be together again later that evening, after the band finished the show.

"We're gonna play nothin' but oldies but baddies tonight," Jimi continued apologetically, dissembling, "we haven't played together in about six weeks, so we're gonna jam tonight - see what happens. Hope you don't mind - just gonna mess around and see what happens." Then his contempt for the blind applause and devotion which attended even his most out of form performances burst through, as he added, off mike but still quite audibly, "you wouldn't know the difference, anyway."

At last the band started playing, a messy "Killing Floor" which wandered around a few half spoken lyrics, and an awful lot of fiddling with amplifiers. Jimi sounded almost relieved when it finished, but only to be plunged back into his private pain when it came time to start the next song. "Like to do a thing that was recorded in 1733 in the Benjamin Franklin Studio, a thing called 'Spanish Castle Magic'." Then he shrugged disinterestedly into the opening bars, and the band picked itself up behind them.

"Fire" flickered gently, but was more akin to warm ashes... the show was almost halfway over, and it still hadn't really got going. "Hey Joe" began in the wrong key, only slowly wound its way back again, then gave way to another admission of Jimi's boiling frustration.

Audience calls for "Wild Thing," a curse since the release of the Monterey movie, were now ignored out of hand. But one voice in the Konserthuset was pressing a demand which was almost painful to contemplate. "We had a request to do a thing called 'All Along The Watchtower'," Jimi told the crowd. "But I forgot the words, so we won't do that one. We've never played that before in concert - we only recorded it. I really am sorry." Just weeks before, The Experience's masterful cover of the Bob Dylan classic had given the group it's biggest ever Scandinavian hit, one of its biggest hits anywhere in the world... and they still hadn't learned how to play it live. If any one situation summed up the sheer hell which the three musicians were living through, that was it.

Instead, Jimi announced the solitary number from the Electric Ladyland album which they had managed to absorb into their live show, "Voodoo Chile"... and then appeared to have forgotten how that one went as well! Noel came to his rescue: "it goes like this, Jimi, remember," then "nah nah nah"-ed the opening wah wah line. Hendrix echoed him on the guitar, but by halfway through the song, which itself had already degenerated into a very loose jam, he appeared to have lost interest again - so much so that first Mitch, then Noel, suddenly found themselves filling the empty space with completely impromptu solos.

Jimi snapped back to alertness for a lengthy "Red House," the best number of the show so far, but he drifted off again in the closing song, leaving Noel to solo through a version of "Sunshine Of Your Love" which stumbled off the stage with the musicians, and left the capacity crowd wondering just what had gone wrong.

Backstage, The Experience were asking the same question. Locked into earnest post-mortem through The Outsiders' second set, they missed another dynamite blast from Jethro Tull as well, but from the moment they hit the stage for their own show, the difference between the two performances was gargantuan. Whatever was said in the dressing room, it worked.

There was no long preamble before the first song got going, no disconsolate messing around with machine heads and volume settings. Instead, Jimi just nodded, "okay Mitch..." and the drummer launched the pounding Cherokee beat which heralded "I Don't Live Today."

Swedish television's Channel Nine was videotaping the set, and they must have been thrilled that they decided to capture the second show. And history shares their enthusiasm - both the footage and the soundtrack have since become one of the most common, and commonly disputed, "gray area" recordings in Jimi's whole catalog, as sundry putative owners outline their own dubious rights to the recording. Bootleggers and tape traders, of course, face no such dilemmas, and amongst them, "Stockholm 1969" offers up both one of the worst... the first set... and one of the best... the second... shows in The Experience's entire canon.

"Spanish Castle Magic" followed, casting out the last of the demons unleashed by its earlier airing, abandonedly living up to Jimi's smiled caution as the song got underway: "I'd like to warn you now, it's gonna be a bit loud. A tiny bit loud because these are English amps and we're in sweden, and the electricity scene is not working out with this Australian fuzztone and this American guitar."

Up next was "Hey Joe," on key this time, and an excuse for Jimi to make up new lyrics and improvise some old ones... he threw in a snatch of the Beatles' "Daytripper," and when Noel suggested they follow it with Chuck Berry's "Johnny B Goode," Jimi's laugh proved he was tempted.

Instead, he went into his longest spiel of the show, another condemnation of the inhuman schedule the band was laboring beneath, but a smiling one... "we got this LP out called Electric Ladyland and there's only one song that we remember from it, because - I dunno, it's like a diary all these LPs. That's why we don't necessarily do them onstage all the time. We just like to jam on stage." And then he threw the figurative book at Mike Jeffery: "I'd like to dedicate this song to all those people who can actually feel and think for themselves, and feel free for themselves" - luxuries, of course, which The Experience's schedule all but forbade them from enjoying.

"Voodoo Chile" was a revelation, not only for its revealing preamble, but for the country blues solo Jimi dropped into the middle, while Noel and Mitch simply stood and watched. Then it was back to basics with "Sunshine Of Your Love," "Red House," "Fire," "Purple Haze," and wrapping the night up on an even more unexpected high, "Star Spangled Banner," a feedback drenched slab of patriotic irony which brought the Konserthusen performances full circle, back to Jimi's opening comments at the start of the first set... "I'd like to dedicate this show to the American Deserters Society."

The roars from the audience prove that the "society" appreciated the gesture.

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