Growing out of the Jimi Hendrix Electric Guitar Festivals of the 1990s, the continually expanding Experience Hendrix Tour is now an annual nationwide event, in which leading rock and blues artists pay tribute to Hendrix, with its most ambitious itinerary and biggest impact yet in Spring 2017. 2017 is the fiftieth anniversary of Hendrix’s breakthrough as an intercontinental popular artist, and of the release of the first album of the Jim Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced? The Jimi Hendrix live performance CD Machine Gun: The Fillmore East First Show (recorded 12/31/69) was released in September 2016, received rave reviews, and reached 66 in the Billboard 200, with subsequent solid sales.