For those of you curious what "Rainbow Bridge" was, I was too. After learning it was the most ill-conceived, incoherent project, I advise you to use your time watching better documentaries of more significant events.
Record stores had a Hendrix album "Rainbow Bridge-Original Motion Picture Soundtrack." Before internet, it took years to find out the album was a scam. It did not contain any performances from the event. It has unreleased tracks for his Cry Of Love album. They were released in 1997 as First Rays of the New Rising Sun, but it's not a soundtrack.
In the 90's I spotted a VHS of Rainbow Bridge at a video store and eagerly brought it home, only to waste 2 hours and end years of wondering. It is simply one of the worst documentaries ever made of a badly conceived, disorganized, incomprehensible waste of time, especially Jimi's.
My understanding is, in 1970 a few industry people Michael Jeffery & Chuck Wein talked Warner Bros. Into making a film combining the hippie-peace movement with the Hawaiian surfing culture, having Hendrix provide the music and perform at it.
They recruited Warhol actress Pat Hartley to walk around aimlessly, asking people their feelings of the world today before boarding a plane to Hawaii for the culmination of this unintelligible gathering.
Then you watch 90 minutes of stoned young people, wasted out of their minds, talking meaningless chatter they probably didn't remember the next day. Even a drunk Jimi Hendrix himself, shows up in an attic talking insensibly with several of these aspiring shamans.
The final and only redeeming part of this whole thing had musical guests Hendrix, Cox and Mitchell trio performing on stage. It's a portion of edited song clips synced over the film. Apparently, the recording had so much noise, it was not used in the film.
Rainbow Bridge is one of the worst documentaries ever made. It was horribly filmed, with no direction or purpose, as was the entire half-baked idea.
On a positive note, Eddie Kramer and his technicians restored most of the audio and in Nov 2020 released Hendrix Live in Maui. The performance is great. I encourage you to instead enjoy this CD and First Rays of the New Rising Sun.
