Aging & Wisdom Quote by Roy Wood

Roy Wood is doing a very musician thing here: mythmaking with a wink, then pinning it to a specific, almost throwaway detail. The line isn’t just Hendrix worship. It’s a snapshot of the 1960s as a workshop, not a museum - where the “best thing” can happen after rehearsal, off-record, unrepeatable, and therefore more sacred. Wood’s superlative (“best thing I ever heard”) lands like a dare because it refuses the normal hierarchy of famous tracks and official releases. He’s telling you greatness isn’t always where the industry points you.

The song choice is the sly part. “I Can Hear the Grass Grow” is a Mod-era curiosity (often associated with the Move, Wood’s own band) and a psychedelic title that practically advertises heightened perception. Hearing Hendrix play it reframes Hendrix less as a distant guitar god and more as a peer circling the same scene, absorbing and reanimating local material. It’s also a kind of cultural judo: Wood elevates his milieu by showing it could capture Hendrix’s imagination.

“After a rehearsal” signals intimacy and loss. No tape, no proof, just testimony - the currency of rock history. The subtext is that the ’60s weren’t only about icons but about proximity: being in the room when someone tries something once, brilliantly, and moves on. Wood’s intent is part awe, part quiet credentialing, and part protest against how rock gets flattened into “canonical” artifacts instead of lived moments.