Purple Blaze

A guitar once set alight by Jimi Hendrix during a show at the Finsbury Park Astoria has sold at an east London auction for £280,000. Following a gig in 1967, the Seattle-born singer doused the instrument, a Fender Stratocaster, in lighter fuel and torched it before, in a moment less celebrated of by rock 'n roll historians, retiring to a nearby hospital and getting treatment for minor burns. The guitar's charred body remained at a business associate's house until recently, and it went on the block alongside the Beatles' first management contract (which fetched £240,000) and an Elvis Presley gun permit, among other items.