The world needs more Jimi Hendrix live albums like it needs four more years, but the hits just keep on coming. Hendrix was a brilliant, innovative musician whose gigs were really inconsistent because his bands never seemed to be on the same astral plane as their leader, because Hendrix often seemed distracted onstage, and because audiences didn't give a shit. Live at Berkeley, the second of a two-set, May 30, 1970, gig at Berkeley Community Theatre that's been available officially and as a bootleg – the first set, captured on film as Jimi in Berkeley, was recently released on DVD – is no different than the others. So you look for other things to pass the time.

Over the years, I've developed a rating system based on Hendrix's between-song remarks, which were a sometimes hilarious, often nonsensical mix that reflected his days as an R&B sideperson, incorporated LSD-influenced hippie patois, and responded to superstardom and events of the day. From this vantage point, Live at Berkeley gets a solid four stars. The concert took place the same month the United States invaded Cambodia, and Berkeley was a liberated zone. It brought out the best in Hendrix, who introduced the 11-minute-22-second "Machine Gun" by saying, "I'd like to dedicate this to all the soldiers fighting in Berkeley – you know what soldiers I'm talkin' about – and, ah, oh yeah, the soldiers fighting in Vietnam, like to dedicate it to them too. And we'd like to dedicate it to other people who might be fighting wars, but within themselves, not facing up to the realities."

It was lame as hell to play "Star Spangled Banner" – a good trick at Woodstock, a bad idea ever after – and lamer to introduce it by saying, "Everybody stand up this time, everybody stand up, 'cuz we's all Americans ... I'd like to do the American anthem the way it really sounds," which might've worked in Kansas but not in revolutionary B-town, where we stayed in our seats and didn't even smile until midway through the tune when Hendrix said, "And our flag was still there, big deal ..."