Live From Bunka, Prague

Imagine the scenario – the bass guitarist with one of the legendary bands of the sixties meets some of his old mates in a New York restaurant and they decide to do a live gig in Prague for which they’ll have a mere ninety minutes rehearsal time.

It shouldn’t have worked but, remarkably, it turns out most satisfactorily, mainly because of the reverence and restraint ex-Hendrix bassist Noel Redding, Frankie La Rocka (a former drummer with John Waite and Bryan Adams), Anthony Krizan and Ivan Kral bring to playing a clutch of tunes mostly associated with Redding’s former boss Jimi Hendrix.

The eleven tracks include such Hendrix staples as ‘Voodoo Chile’, ‘Hey Joe’, Wild Thing’, ‘Stone Free’, ‘Little Wing’, ‘Little Miss Lover’, ‘Red House’ and ‘Purple Haze’, plus some other fine creations from the general rock canon, as in Lesley West and Corky Lang’s ‘Silver Paper’, Earl King’s ‘Come On’ and Lennon’s ‘Cold Turkey’, all presumably included for no reason other than they felt like it.

If there’s one drawback to the enterprise it’s that the audience, which included Czech President and fully paid up rock fan Vaclav Havel, could have been captured at a higher volume to increase the sense of excitement crucial to a live gig.

Of course this is not the real Jim Hendrix Experience, nor does it pretend to be, but it’s probably as good as we’re likely to get this side of judgement day.