Jimi Hendrix played an immortal version of the Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock 1969 that remains one of the most powerful and controversial performances in American music history. As the last performer at the festival on the morning of August 18, 1969, Hendrix took the stage before a weary but still-present crowd of several hundred thousand people and transformed the national anthem into a piece of avant-garde musical protest.
Hendrix played a dramatic virtuoso rendition of the American national anthem on a screeching electric guitar that simulated the sounds of bombs dropping, explosions blasting, and machine guns firing — all woven into the melody line of "The Star-Spangled Banner." The result was a piece of musical art that could be heard as both a celebration of America and a searing critique of the Vietnam War that was consuming a generation.
The Performance
Hendrix performed the anthem without announcement, segueing into it from his set as the sun rose over Yasgur's farm. His Fender Stratocaster became a weapon and a paintbrush simultaneously — the wah-wah pedal, the vibrato bar, and his unparalleled control of feedback allowed him to conjure sounds that no one had heard come from a guitar before.
The bombs, the screams, the chaos — and then the melody returning, wounded but intact. It was simultaneously the most patriotic and the most anti-war statement that Woodstock produced.
What It Meant
In August 1969, with the Vietnam War at its height and hundreds of thousands of American soldiers still deployed, Hendrix's Star-Spangled Banner was impossible to hear neutrally. The crowd of young people at Woodstock — many of them draft-age men — understood exactly what they were hearing.
The Legacy
Hendrix's Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock is now considered one of the greatest musical performances of the 20th century. It appears on the Woodstock soundtrack album, the documentary film, and countless "greatest moments in rock history" lists. It permanently changed the way Americans think about the national anthem and what it means for an artist to engage with patriotic symbolism.