Correction Appended

Q. My dad told me that there was a concert in Queens where Jimi Hendrix opened for the Monkees. I refuse to believe this.

A. Believe it. In one of rock's all-time mismatches, Jimi Hendrix and the Experience signed on as an opening act for the Monkees in midtour. After dates in the South, they played several concerts in July 1967 in the stadium at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills.

What were they thinking? Answer: The Monkees wanted respect, and Hendrix wanted publicity. Despite the notoriety from his guitar-burning appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival the month before, Hendrix was better known in England than in the United States, and was far less popular than the Monkees, who had been created for a television sitcom and whose fans consisted mostly of prepubescent girls.

According to an account of the incident in "Oops," a new chronicle of modern fiascoes by Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger, Hendrix's temper boiled over at Forest Hills. The problem wasn't the performers, who got along pretty well. It was the Monkees' fans, who had little interest in the scary psychedelic dude who preceded their idols. Hendrix's riffs were drowned out by screams of "We want Davy!" (Davy Jones was a Monkee.) Finally, Hendrix gestured obscenely, with words to match, and stomped offstage.