Monterey Pop Festival site

The Monterey International Pop Festival ran across three days — June 16 to 18, 1967 — at the Monterey County Fairgrounds on the central California coast, and it was the event that introduced Jimi Hendrix to American audiences. He had spent the preceding eight months in England, where he had arrived unknown and become enormous. The Experience's debut single was in the UK charts, the album was finished, the London music press was treating him as the most extraordinary guitarist they had ever seen. In America, almost no one had heard of him.

Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones walked out on stage on Sunday evening, June 18, to introduce him. Hendrix played a forty-five-minute set that included "Killing Floor," "Hey Joe," "Purple Haze," and "Wild Thing" — and then, at the end, crouched over his Fender Stratocaster, soaked it in lighter fluid, set it on fire, smashed it, and threw the pieces into the crowd. He and Pete Townshend had reportedly argued backstage about who would go first, neither wanting to follow the other's guitar destruction; a coin toss put Hendrix in the closing slot. D.A. Pennebaker captured the performance on film, and the footage of the burning guitar became one of the defining images of the era.

The Monterey County Fairgrounds still operates as an events venue and hosts the Monterey Jazz Festival each year. A historical marker acknowledges the Pop Festival, and the site has been formally recognised for its place in music history. Standing on the fairground in the afternoon quiet, it is difficult to picture the 55,000 people who were there in June 1967 watching Jimi Hendrix set himself on fire and become famous.