The Cream concert at Brandeis University on March 23, 1968 was supposed to start at 8, but my friends and I took our time getting out to Waltham. Just as well. Cream's plane was late, and every half hour or so, we'd get an update. The night dragged on. Almost no one left. At 2:15 AM --- six hours late --- Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker finally took the stage.
My diaries are in diary heaven. But Stuart Mitchner published his account:
There was no smiling, no appearance of rapport. Each man was on his own mission. The dynamic was based more on conflict than cohesion. They did not inspire each other: they drove each other. With his wild orange-red hair, satanic beard, and electric-blue shirt, Ginger Baker swarmed over his drums, kicking and pounding and tom-tomming at the backs of the other two like some storm-making, earth-moving denizen of the underworld...Bruce and Clapton rarely looked at each other. The world of sound they were making took all their attention. That massive, mind-numbing sound was still ringing in my ears the next afternoon when I scribbled down some impressions: "Devastating. Complete. Unbelievable. Scary, almost unbearable. Sound as a tangible substance. Waking with pounding temples and hung over and no room in mind for anything else."
Yes. Exactly. That night at Brandeis was a primal event; if it had ended with three English musicians spontaneously combusting, I would have said that I had seen holy justice. And I would have bowed down to the force that had given me eyes and ears to bear witness. So I cheer Eric Clapton for defeating demons and carrying on, and I think it's great that he's still out there. And you may understand why I've carefully avoided his concerts these last four decades.
But it came to pass that Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood were coming to New York and good tickets to their second night at Madison Square Garden fell into my possession. And so it was that, promptly at 8:15 PM, my wife and I watched two men in dark, untucked shirts and relaxed fit jeans and comfortable shoes take their stage.
The English have an advantage; they tend to look smart and alert, even if the reason is just millennia of breeding. Clapton, in wire-rims, has the careful, thoughtful expression of a surgeon. Or a writer --- he looks disconcertingly like Ian McEwan. There's more joy on Winwood's face; he looks like a happier, trimmer, less made-up Paul McCartney.
They said almost nothing, just played. Yes, there was singing, mostly by Winwood, but the lyrics of their original material were, all these years later, so thin as to be inconsequential. I mean: "It's already written that today will be one to remember/The feeling's the same as being outside of the law/Had to cry today." What is one to make of that? Or "It's a fine line, a very fine line" --- over and over and over. And there were more like that: an unimportant lyric, repeated like an old blues truth. Yeah, I know that when Clapton wrote "Presence of the Lord," he couldn't bring himself to sing it so he asked Winwood to do the honors, and now I guess it's a big deal that all these years later Clapton can sing his own words, but --- I'm sorry, to me, the vocals were just there for accent.
I kept waiting for nasty licks from Clapton, but on this night, anyway, his playing was a model of premeditation and control. Maybe it was brilliant; to me, the words that wouldn't leave my head were "academic" and "chilly". And the homages to Southside Chicago blues seemed simply unnecessary. Clapton and Mayall and their brethren helped Americans rediscover our heritage four decades ago. In the years since, B.B. King, Buddy Guy and a legion of others benefited greatly from their help. If these songs made me nostalgic for anything, it was for my old Vanguard and Delmark recordings by the Chicago masters.
The night belonged to Winwood. He can play every instrument on stage, he's by far the better singer, and as a personality, he's warmer. But his dominance was more than personal --- for me, anyway, the guitar hero is a hero of the past. "Clapton is God." Yes. Once. But the "guitar god" as a concept feels as outdated as the big man in the NBA. Watching Clapton deliver power chords or take a crowd-pleasing solo just doesn't excite me anymore.
As I sat there, my mind drifted to the concerts that are markers in my life. Cream at Brandeis, for certain. Marion Williams, singing gospel so impassioned I half-expected Jesus to walk onstage and embrace her. Van Morrison, back to the audience, stout as a barman, every word and note divine. The Band. The Wailers, before Bob Marley stole the spotlight. Josh Ritter and Emmylou Harris and Buddy Miller, on any night. John Fogerty, in a small studio with a loud band. Steve Earle, with Del McCoury. Caetano Veloso and David Bryne. Rodney Crowell, after a scorcher, thanking his band, one by one. Leonard Cohen, Carnegie Hall, five encores. Bruce, solo, in Paris.
What made those concerts unforgettable wasn't the music, it was the presence of the musician. In every case, something was on the line for the performer, something not to be found on the sheet music or in the pre-concert instructions. And that intangible was what came across.
I'm not saying that the music didn't matter to Winwood and Clapton, or that they were phoning it in --- just that nothing much seemed to be at stake for them. And so nothing much happened for me. No biggie. Some night soon, I know, I'll leave my desk to hear music that scares me, thrills me, and takes me somewhere new. Until then, if I want to hear Eric Clapton or Steve Winwood, I've got their records.