Eric Clapton and his music

Не, мне нравится этот комментарий:
Bass player Bruce, 61, has had a liver transplant, and drummer Baker, 65, is said to suffer from arthritis.

But that did not stop the rock veterans playing their best-known songs in a concert lasting nearly two hours.

The band came on stage unannounced to a standing ovation and launched into I’m So Glad.

After three songs, Clapton told the crowd: “Thanks for waiting all those years!”

Как будто из пансиона для старикоф-маразматикоф вывезли инвалидоф-пенсионероф и, о боже, они оказывается вдарили!!! И даже зажигали не по-децки!!! :)))
А, если, серьёзно, такое надо видеть (хотя б на видео). "Дедульки" правильно сделали, что не состряпали какое-нидь псевдо-новое "фри ас бёрд" или нечто подобное. фсё гррамотно: "старый материал-деньги-касса-разбежались-лечение-коляска-утка" (опять шучу)

2john lee hooker:
>А, если, серьёзно, такое надо видеть (хотя б на видео).
Увидим, причем оч скоро...

Clapton returns for Cream dates

Influential British 1960s band Cream reunited for a concert on Monday - 36 years after the group split.

Guitarist Eric Clapton joined drummer Ginger Baker and bass player Jack Bruce for a series of performances at London's Royal Albert Hall.

The band last played together in 1993 when they were inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

All four performances sold in less than two hours, with tickets changing hands for more than £500 on eBay.

Standing ovation

Agencies had been offering tickets for the concerts for up to £1,700, and standing tickets at the top of hall were advertised for £350.

Many fans had flown over from the USA to witness the reunion, which Clapton, 60, is said to have agreed to because of the failing health of the other former members of the band.

Bass player Bruce, 61, has had a liver transplant, and drummer Baker, 65, is said to suffer from arthritis.

Cream last played at the Royal Albert Hall in 1968.

Although the band were only together for less than three years, they recorded three albums which sold more than 35 million copies.

Singles included Crossroads and Born Under a Bad Sign, I Feel Free and Strange Brew.

On Monday the band received a standing ovation after coming on stage unannounced and launching into I'm So Glad. After three songs, Clapton told the crowd: "Thanks for waiting all those years!"

He added: "We'll probably play everything we know - we'll play as long as we can."

Their set included all their most famous songs, including Crossroads, Spoonful and White Room. The encore was Sunshine of Your Love - their biggest hit single.

Before joining Cream, Clapton had previously been with the Yardbirds and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.

Cream formed in 1966 but split acrimoniously in 1969.

Clapton, who recently celebrated his 60th birthday, went on to form Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominoes - with whom he recorded Layla - before carving out a successful solo career.

Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker both went on to play with numerous other bands, as well as recording with each other.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4506185.stm

Jack Bruce

Cream reunited after 36 years
02/05/2005

Sixties rockers Cream were reunited tonight – more than 36 years since their farewell concert on the same stage.

It was the hottest ticket in town as Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker played the first of four dates at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Tickets for the shows – with a face value of £50, £75 and £125 – sold out within minutes and were traded almost immediately on eBay for hundreds of pounds more.

Agencies had been offering tickets for the concerts for up to £1,700, and even standing tickets at the top of the huge hall had been advertised for £350.

Tonight the touts were busy outside the Albert Hall.

Many fans had flown over from the US specially for the historic reunion.

Cream split u in 1968 after two years together and Clapton, 60, is said to have agreed to the reunion because of the failing health of the other former members of the band.

Bass player Bruce, 61, has had a liver transplant, and drummer Baker, 65, is said to suffer from arthritis.

But that did not stop the rock veterans playing their best-known songs in a concert lasting nearly two hours.

The band came on stage unannounced to a standing ovation and launched into I’m So Glad.

After three songs, Clapton told the crowd: “Thanks for waiting all those years!”

To cheers, he said: “We’ll probably play everything we know – we’ll play as long as we can.”

Their set included all their most famous songs, including Crossroads, Spoonful and White Room.

In their youth, Cream were famous for their lengthy improvisations – Clapton said recently that they used to be so stoned they would forget what song they were playing and would continue improvising until they remembered.

Tonight the songs were shorter so it was unlikely that Clapton – a reformed alcoholic and a former heroin addict – ever forgot what he was playing.

During their short time together in the Sixties, blues-rockers Cream produced three studio albums and toured extensively in the US.

Their biggest hit single was Sunshine of Your Love, which was tonight’s encore.

After they split up in 1968, Clapton went on to form Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominoes – with whom he recorded the classic single Layla – followed by a successful solo career.

Bruce and Baker formed bands of their own but never achieved the same success that they had with Cream.

The only previous time the three musicians had played together since 1968 was a brief appearance in 1993 when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

http://212.2.162.45/entertainment/story.asp?j=141711850&p=y4y7yz556&n=141712610

Вот сет-лист:

I'm So Glad
Spoonful
Outside Woman Blues
Pressed Rat and Wart Hog
Sleepy Time, Time
NSU
Badge
Politician
Sweet Wine
Rollin' & Tumblin'
Stormy Monday
Deserted Cities of the Heart
Born Under a Bad Sign
We're Going Wrong
Crossroads
Sitting on Top of the World
White Room
Toad
Sunshine of Your Love (Encore)

Reviewers gush over Cream reunion concert
Associated Press

LONDON — Reviewers hailed the reunion of Cream, the rock supergroup, though they found it hard to resist comments about the advanced age of the performers and the audience.

More than 25 years after their last performance together, Eric Clapton, now 60, Jack Bruce, 61, and Ginger Baker, 65, pulled a sold-out house at the Royal Albert Hall on Monday night. The band simply walked on stage unannounced and dug into "I'm So Glad."

After two more songs, each received with a standing ovation, Clapton said. "Thanks for waiting all those years!"

"We'll probably play everything we know -- we'll play as long as we can," he told the crowd.

The cheering continued in Tuesday's review columns.

"They were never less than good, often brilliant, occasionally inspired," David Cheal wrote in The Daily Telegraph. "And they got better as the night went on."

The group played its farewell concert at the Albert Hall on Nov. 26, 1968, and most of the audience dated from that era.

"The atmosphere is less like a rock concert than a corporate hospitality tent at Wimbledon. Paunchy men in sports jackets clink ice in gin and tonics, and mumsy ladies fan themselves with pricey souvenir programs," Alex Petridis wrote in The Guardian.

Petridis found the performance a pale shadow of Cream's brief glory years.

"You get a brief glimpse of what the fuss was about during 'Rollin' and Tumblin,' when Bruce abandons his bass guitar in favor of a harmonica, and Clapton and Baker churn out a frantic, clattering riff," Petridis wrote.

The same tune wowed Cheal.

"Rollin' and Tumblin,' with Bruce on harmonica, was sensational, an express train of a song, hurtling along with purpose, power and unstoppable momentum. For the first of many occasions during the evening, I had to sit, blink, look around the stage and remind myself that I was watching Cream at the Albert Hall -- and they were very, very good," Cheal wrote.

"Inevitably, they were a diminished version of their former selves," he wrote. "... They are not young men, and they were not playing, as they once did, as if their lives depended on it."

Clapton reunites Cream
(Tuesday May 03, 2005 11:30 AM)

Eric Clapton has reunited his '60s blues band Cream.

The trio, also comprising drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce, performed the first of four sold-out reunion shows at London's Royal Albert Hall last night [May 2].

BBC News reports that Clapton is believed to have agreed to the reunion due to the failing health of the other members.

Bruce recently underwent a liver transplant while Baker suffers from arthritis.

The set, featuring much of the three albums the band recorded during their three years in existence from 1966 to 1969, opened with "I'm So Glad".

Clapton told the audience: "Thanks for waiting all those years! We'll probably play everything we know - we'll play as long as we can."

The encore was the band's biggest hit, "Sunshine of Your Love".

Although these dates mark the band's first full reunion, they briefly played together in 1993 when they were inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The sold-out shows continue tonight [May 3], Thursday [May 5] and Friday.

Clapton's Cream rises again, 36 years on

May 3, 2005

By Paul Majendie

London - With a devoted middle-aged fan base that can afford to pay inflated ticket prices, nostalgia is big business for the rock 'n' roll dinosaurs who have survived the excesses of their youth.

Queen reformed with a new lead singer, Led Zeppelin earned a lifetime achievement Grammy award and Def Leppard are taking to the road with Bryan Adams - while the Rolling Stones just keep on touring.

Now it's time for Cream.

Fans crossed the Atlantic and paid up to £2 000 (about R23 000) a ticket for the reunion of the Sixties supergroup, 36 years after their acrimonious split.

The atmosphere at the first of their gigs at London's Royal Albert Hall may have been, as one critic said, more like a corporate hospitality tent at the Wimbledon tennis tournament than a rock concert, with balding fans outnumbering long-haired devotees.

But most reviews were more generous about the gyrating geriatrics.

"Pioneers turn to nostalgia as they preach to the delirious converted," said the Times.

Guitarist Eric Clapton joined forces with drummer Ginger Baker and bass player Jack Bruce to re-create hits such as Sunshine of Your Love that helped to sell 35 million records in less than three years together.


The trio, already renowned musicians on the British blues and rock scene when they formed in 1966 at Baker's suggestion, last reunited briefly in 1993 when inducted into the Los Angeles Hall of Fame.

All are now in their 60s, with Bruce recovering from a liver transplant, Baker suffering from osteoarthritis and Clapton clean after years of drug and alcohol abuse.

"Thanks for waiting all those years," Clapton told fans who gave them a standing ovation at Monday night's concert. "We were cut off in our prime."

"This is our prime," Bruce yelled back.

Cream was a classic case of rock excess with Clapton freely admitting that their legendary extended solos were due more to insobriety than creativity.

"We'd be in the middle of a song and not remember what it was. You just kept playing until you recalled what it was you were coming back to," he recalled in a radio interview before the gig.

Despite the well documented clash of three rock super-egos, Clapton said: "Some of the nights I played with the band have never been equalled because to really get to that level, you have to play together every night with nothing to distract you."

Tue May 3, 5:55 AM ET

LONDON (AFP) - Cream, the short-lived 1960s rock supergroup which propelled guitarist Eric Clapton to global fame, took to the stage, 37 years after their farewell concert at the same venue.

Clapton, now 60, along with bassist-singer Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker played the first of four dates at the Royal Albert Hall to a rapturous reception.

The shows, the trio's first concerts since they split in 1968, save a one-off US appearance in 1993, sold out in minutes.

Tickets for the remaining nights are being sold on Internet auction website eBay for up to 800 pounds (1,200 euros, 1,500 dollars) a pair.

The band -- supposedly named because they considered themselves the most musically able rock musicians of their era -- only released three studio albums in a brief career that ended in all-round acrimony, amid heavy drinking and drug use.

Nonetheless, their blend of Clapton's rock and blues guitar playing coupled with the heavily jazz-influenced playing of Bruce and Baker, made Cream hugely influential.

Clapton reportedly decided on the reunion due to the failing health of his ex-bandmates -- Bruce, 61, has had a liver transplant, while 65-year-old Baker is said to suffer from arthritis.

Despite their ailments, the band treated the crowd to a near-two hour set including famous songs "Crossroads", "White Room" and "Sunshine of Your Love".

"Thanks for waiting all those years," Clapton told the crowd after three songs.

In their heyday, Cream were famed for their lengthy improvisations, with Clapton recently confessing that heavy drug use meant the band would occasionally forget what song they were playing and continue improvising until they remembered.

Clapton is now a reformed alcoholic and anti-drug campaigner, and the songs played on Monday night were notably more brief.

Cream reunion tickets fetching £2,000
12.23PM, Tue Mar 29 2005

"We're only doing four nights and I think we have to accept that's probably it" - Eric Clapton

Tickets for a reunion concert featuring 1960s supergroup Cream are changing hands for almost £2,000.

Cream members Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker getting back together for four nights at the Royal Albert Hall where they last played in November 1968.

The May shows sold out within hours and touts were soon offering £125 seats for £1,995.

Clapton said the reunion plans were first mooted when Cream were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Los Angeles in 1993.

"We're only doing four nights and I think we have to accept that's probably it," he said.

"I've got a world tour to do and we're not young guys any more."

But he did hint that the group may "have another discussion" after the shows.

Clapton described the formation of the group back in the 1960s as a "licence to print money".

"We could do anything and get away with it," he said.

"It was actually a huge temptation."

НУ А ТЕПЕРЬ, РЕПОРТАЖИ ОЧЕВИДЦЕВ! №1

Friends,

As many of you know, I have waited for this since 1968 when I did not get to
see Cream in Montreal. I was prepared to enjoy this show and not have huge
expectations. This show was incredible. From the anticipation one could
also touch to the moment that Eric, Jack and Ginger walked off the stage 2
hours later, this was an amazing experience. Thank you so much to Susan and
Art that made this possible for me.

Set list as well as I can remember, I know I'm off on the order.

I'm So Glad
Spoonful
Outside Woman Blues
Pressed Rat and Warthog
Sleepy Time Time
Deserted Cities of the Heart
Born Under a Bad Sign
Badge
NSU
Stormy Monday
Rollin' and Tumblin' (Jack on harmonica only, no bass, Eric on guitar,
Ginger on drums)
Politician
Sweet Wine
We're Going Wrong
Crossroads (fast version!)
Sitting On Top Of The Wolrd
White Room (Eric did some of the "high" parts that Andy and Nathan have been
doing in his solo tours)
Toad (an amazing 5-10 minute Ginger drum solo)
encore: Sunshine of Your Love

Eric played a Blackie Strat the whole show, only switching to a second one
for slide on Rollin' and Tumblin'. There was at least a partial standing
ovation after EVERY song. No really extended versions but this worked well.
Gingers unique patterns and Jack's bass stood out so much in comparison to
the drummers and bass players Eric has had in his solo career.

As good an EC show as I have ever seen, but then it wasn't just EC, it was
Cream and the chemistry of these three together is still there. An
unbelievable evening.

РЕПОРТАЖИ ОЧЕВИДЦЕВ! №2

First Night reviews

May 03, 2005

Cream
David Sinclair at the Albert Hall

RARELY does a rock show come with so much historical baggage. Thirty-seven years since they had last played a concert together — at the Albert Hall on November 26, 1968 — Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker returned there last night.
A lifetime had passed, for both group and audience, and it looked like it. Fans who might last have seen the original power trio when they were at school are now captains of industry.



Never before have the founding members of a group of this order made the transition from pioneers to nostalgic turn in one such gigantic step. Their reward was a tumultuous standing ovation before they had even played a note — and a succession of standing ovations after virtually every number they played thereafter. The rest of the time, however, the audience although clearly enthused, remained firmly in their seats.

The group, while evidently well-rehearsed and very happy to be on stage together, were not about to revisit the shock-and-awe tactics for which they are best remembered. During the opening salvo of I’m So Glad and Spoonful they made a few brief, tentative steps in the direction of an improvised free-for-all, but the closest they came to reviving the grandstanding habits of old was an extended solo section in Sweet Wine.

Instead they played with a newfound economy of effort that worked to best advantage on some of their more out of the way, pop-flavoured songs including Deserted Cities of the Heart and a surprise inclusion of Pressed Rat And Warthog, the lysergic nursery rhyme narrated by Baker in his cockney growl.

There were the odd fumbles here and there. During a raucous Rollin’ and Tumblin’, Bruce found it was his harmonica that was doing the rolling and tumbling somewhere between hand and mouth. Baker dropped a stick during the ensuing Stormy Monday Blues and completely missed the turnaround at the end of the first chorus of White Room. But these were minor quibbles.

Clapton, at 60, was not only the youngest and fittest of the three, but also the most comfortable in this elevated environment and, almost without trying, acquitted himself as first among equals. His soloing was simply outstanding, as was Bruce’s vocal performance, especially on Born Under a Bad Sign and Politician, although the relaxed stroll which the trio took through Crossroads was a disappointment compared with the electrifying drama of the classic version as captured on Wheels of Fire.

It ended with Baker playing his signature drum solo Toad. Here again the arrangement was more in the concise spirit of the studio recording of the number on Fresh Cream than the rambling 15-minute assault course of the live version on Wheels of Fire. It was noticeable how he made every beat count, striking his toms with incredible precision to produce that familiar sound of logs rolling down a mountainside.

You can’t turn back the clock, and in truth, they didn’t try. But it was still a tremendous thrill to see the three of them together again after all these years.


Cream play three more shows at the Albert Hall, tonight, Thursday and Friday

НЕКОТОРЫЕ ФОТКИ...
http://www.starfileonline.com/eventpics.asp...nion%20Concerts%20at%20Royal%20Albert%20Hall

РЕПОРТАЖИ ОЧЕВИДЦЕВ! №3

Cream
Royal Albert Hall, London
Alexis Petridis
Tuesday May 3, 2005
The Guardian

The first live show for 36 years by Eric Clapton's blues/rock "power trio" may have attracted the attentions of the media, but it has had difficulty snaring anyone under 40; young people are conspicuous by their absence from the bars and foyers of the Royal Albert Hall.
The atmosphere is less like a rock concert than a corporate hospitality tent at Wimbledon. Paunchy men in sports jackets clink ice in gin and tonics, and mumsy ladies fan themselves with pricey souvenir programmes. Presumably some of them were here the last time Cream played the Royal Albert Hall, squinting at the band's November 1968 farewell concert through a fug of aromatic smoke. Tonight, however, the air is thick with something else, not as pungent, but no less heady: nostalgia for a lost era, when a 15-minute drum solo called Toad could have your average audience roaring their approval, rather than clambering over each other to reach the exits.


Article continues

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You can see why anyone who wasn't there at the time might approach Cream's surprise reformation with trepidation. History frequently gives the impression Cream were formed for the specific purpose of giving the Jimi Hendrix Experience something to upstage.
Hendrix, rather unsportingly, fetched up in London two weeks after their first gig, and immediately set about making them look a bit stodgy. He has continued to do so after his death; one of the few benefits attached to choking on your own vomit at 27 being that it prevents you from reaching middle age, donning an Armani suit and crooning deadly soft rock ballads about how your wife looks wonderful tonight. In addition, as Clapton notes between songs, Cream "didn't go on for very long - the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune cut us off in our prime" - but their 2 year career was responsible for generating a lot of concepts that leave you wondering whether listening to rock music is such an edifying way to spend your time.

Their star-heavy line up of Clapton, drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce gave birth to the notion of the supergroup, in which already-famous rock musicians struggle to squeeze their collective egos into a confined space, usually with artistically disastrous results. Their massive-grossing US tours gave rise to the concept of stadium rock as we know it today. And their deathless penchant for extended soloing gave rise to improvisatory jazz-rock, perhaps the most noisome genre in musical history. After the band's split, Clapton dismissed its "maestro bullshit", but tonight, he seems worryingly reconciled to it. "We're going to play for as long as we can," he announces happily, a remark greeted with deafening cheers, rather than the deeply apprehensive gulp it warrants. A computer generated approximation of a psychedelic slideshow bathes the back of the stage, but what is startling about Cream's oeuvre is how decidedly un-cosmic it sounds in the cold light of 2005. Spoonful and Sleepy Time Time offer a curiously straightforward take on the blues: the solos may be lengthy, and accompanied by much pursing of the lips, frowning etc, but they're oddly prosaic and polished. You get a brief glimpse of what the fuss was about during Rollin' and Tumblin', when Bruce abandons his bass guitar in favour of a harmonica, and Clapton and Baker churn out a frantic, clattering riff. Baker turns out to be the evening's surprise star. A noticeable resemblance to Wilfred Bramble in Steptoe and Son bodes ill, but his drumming is fantastic, adding a snapping, raw edge. In fact, it is Cream's theoretically less substantial material that stands up best four decades on. Full of snaking melodic turns and false endings, Badge is simply a fantastic pop song. Deserted Cities of the Heart strikes an admirable balance between lush vocal harmonies and hulking, muscular power, and even the whimsical psych-pop oddity Pressed Rat and Warthog has the sort of character you are hard-pressed to find in less arcane areas of Cream's catalogue.

Whether their reformation is enough to firm up Cream's shaky place in the pantheon of rock legends is a moot point. But as the crowd rises mid-song to cheer another Clapton solo, and coloured lights bounce off balding pates in the stalls, you suspect that contemporary reappraisal is the last thing their fans are interested in.

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