Let's have a bit of rock nostalgia - with added Cream. Here's their complete reunion concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London, in 2005.
That brings back some memories; but why do the boys look so old? I mean, it was only yesterday . . . wasn't it?
Peter
only yesterday....
ReplyDeleteI had forgotten Clapton was part of Cream, and the guitar riffs about 15 minutes in are vintage Clapton! :-D
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a freshman in college - late 1969 - I was wandering past the campus auditorium when I heard some music inside. I walked up the steps and asked what was going on. One guy said some group named Cream was giving a free concert, so I went in, even though I had never heard of them. Needless to say, I was blown away by their music. Been a fan ever since!
ReplyDeleteHad another cool concert experience a few years later with a Tull concert - finagled my way backstage about an hour before the concert started, spent some time with John, their keyboard player, while he warmed up with Beethoven and Chopin, avoided being thrown out by the group's manager (he ended up getting an official pass for me!), and watched the whole show from a great vantage point backstage.
Definitely the good ol' days in that respect.
I don't know what's up with all these guys looking so old lately.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention so many of them passing away, like Ginger Baker.
What's up with these people??
I believe Ginger Baker is still with us.
ReplyDeleteGinger Baker is still alive. But Jack Bruce died about three years ago.
ReplyDeleteAnd the reunion concert was an interesting contrast to what Cream originally sounded like. There is no question but that the reunion concert was better engineered than the older recordings, and that they were technically better musicians than they had been four decades earlier.
But I think they lost something, as well. Compare the "I'm So Glad" the reunion opens with, to what they sounded like at their original farewell concert in 68. Ignore the terrible engineering/video production.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTZ4IYPy_cE
The old Cream felt like they were always just on the verge of going out of control -- but never did. They were never out of control at the reunion.
But, for me, Cream was still the finest rock group ever, and I'm always glad to see them mentioned again.
Have to agree with you, Ben.
ReplyDeleteTwice I have heard something the first time and said out loud, "That's it! That's music!" The first was hearing Take Five, by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. The other was when I heard Sunshine Of Your Love. Been a Cream fan ever since.
When Sunshine first came out on Disraeli Gears, I fell in love with it.
ReplyDeleteBut the version on Live Cream Volume II really captured the group.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFxTjwsYENE
They looked old 17 years ago...what are they now, embalmed?
ReplyDeleteWell - Bruce is gone, he died (from a recurrence of liver cancer, IIRC) in 2014, roughly 3 years ago...Clapton supposedly ... has "issues", allegedly with his wrists, related to arthritis ... but is still hangin' in there, though not as often in public as formerly, of course...Only Ginger Baker appears to be still as able as always - and he's not as frequently seen as formerly, although that's quite possibly due as much to the changing-face of Blues/Rock performance art as to his advanced age and lessened taste (much less abilities) as a performer/producer.
ReplyDeleteNothing - and no one - lasts forever, even seeming-"immortals" like Cream were, together or individually -
In the original Cream performances, especially the live ones, it seems to show a driving-edge - a "creative-tension", an overlay of slightly-more-raw urgency - than may be said to be present in their work together in the Reunion times and recordings. If so - if, in fact, that's not just a matter of "wishful-hearing", of false perception - it's almost certainly true due to a combination of (primarily) the underlying-conflict in personalities between Bruce and Baker (the two of them famously didn't "play-well" together, even while they did perform brilliantly-well together in Cream), and to the internal "personal devils" that drove all three of them as performers and musicians - especially in the case of Bruce, who was often-enough notorious for being a hard-driver and difficult to work with (especially where Ginger Baker was involved)
From the beginning, Cream (originally The Cream) was working along a sharp edge - it was not a totally-stable group relationship, and it gradually deteriorated; that's - in the end - why they only lasted together from 1966 to 1968. Their final album together (of only 4, I think) - "Goodbye" - was actually full-released in 1969, after they were no longer together, hadn't been for months...
Remarkable group - the first (as said) of the "super-groups"...