By the time of this recording from May of 1970, Jimi Hendrix had reduced his touring slate to weekend jaunts. His Monday-through-Friday was dedicated to the construction of his Electric Lady studios in New York City. So, when Saturday rolled around, Hendrix let it rip.

“Forget about tomorrow and yesterday,” says Hendrix just before tearing the lid off of the “Fire” that opens this set- a first show at the Berkeley Community Theatre. Jimi wasn’t the only one. Given his limited appearance schedule, and that he was the top-drawing artist in rock at the time, demand to see the man was exceptionally high. Add in the spirit of civil unrest permeating college towns around the country in the midst of the ongoing war in Vietnam and it should be no surprise that fans, too, were trying to tear the lid off of the venue- literally scaling walls to bust through the roof of the sold-out show.

Hendrix and his unreconstructed Experience- this one with Mitch Mitchell on drums and Billy Cox on bass- perform as though turned loose and starving, given no promise of another day. There’s the hyper-kinetic “Johnny B. Goode,” and the heavy grooves in signs-of-the-times entries, “Machine Gun,” “Freedom,” and “Message To Love.” And, while the Band of Gypsys permutation that closed ’69 was a trio powered as much by soul than of psychedelic blues, this Experience- holding over Cox from the Gypsys and returning Mitchell to the kit- feels more elemental to Jimi’s basic desire to get out there and wail.

Hendrix still flies the flag in his own iconoclastic way. He nods to the protest movement in the same breath as honoring the soldiers in the muck. A veteran of service, himself, Hendrix knows what it all means. Perhaps never more clearly than on a closing trifecta- “Star Spangled Banner,” “Purple Haze,” and “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” do Jimi and his mates epitomize the mood, the moment, and the magic.