The day Alex met Jimi Hendrix


On August 25, 1968 my cousin Bobby and I (age 16) were kicking around our Vancouver neighbourhood. No plan, just a couple of kids killing time on a sunny summer afternoon.

Kerrisdale Arena (capacity 5,000?) is an old ice rink, mostly used for amateur hockey, but occasionally a venue for rock concerts including, among others: Bill Haley and the Comets (1956), The Yardbirds with Jimmy Page (1967) and Ozzy Osbourne (1981).

  Bobby and I noticed a number of trucks and buses at the back of the arena, and guys with long hair, which wasn't common at the time. We went over to check it out.

"What's happening", we asked.

"We're loading-in for a Mothers of Invention concert", they replied.

Wow, how cool is that, we thought.

Just then Frank Zappa stepped off the bus and walked in our direction! He greeted us, and we had a quick chat. He couldn't have been nicer. I even got an autograph (long-since lost).

After Frank departed, one of the roadies asked: "Would you like to see the show tonight"?

Hell yeah!!

So he gave us back-stage passes and we returned later for the concert, which was amazing.


A few weeks later, back at school, my friend Alex mentioned he had tickets to see Jimi Hendrix at the much larger "Coliseum" in Vancouver (capacity 16,000).

"Would you like to meet Hendrix?", I asked, naively believing my Frank Zappa experience had been the norm!

So here's what I told Alex:

1. On the afternoon of the show, go the Coliseum.

2. Walk around back and you'll see trucks and buses and guys with long hair.

3. They'll give you back-stage passes, and you'll get to meet Hendrix!

Highly unlikely, right?

Honest-to-god, it happened exactly like that! Alex made it all the way into the dressing room where he met Jimi Hendrix ... and he has the photos to prove it!

Crazy, or what? 1968! That would never happen today!


Here's a note from Alex (October 2026):

I took my September 1968 Hendrix photos with my father's Pentax Spotmatic 35mm camera using Kodak slide film. When I think back to that mind-boggling dressing room experience I wish I had done so much more planning and thinking. For example, Noel Redding was there. I don't know if Mitch Mitchell was there because I was so focused on Hendrix. I didn't even have a pen or paper for Hendrix's autograph; I had to borrow both from someone nearby when Jimi agreed to give me his autograph. He said, "Sure man, gotta pen?"