Cream Reunion: October 24, 2005
Well, I guess miracles do happen! Cream decided to do another set of shows at Madison Square Garden in New York after their successful reunion last May at the Royal Albert Hall in London. This time, fortunately, I was aware ahead of time of the time and method of ticket sales. Waking up at 5:30 in the morning and using three different computers, I was able to submit requests almost to the second that they became available. Lo and behold, I was rewarded with almost perfect seats: fourth row right in front of Eric Clapton! As an old bass player I would have preferred to be in front of Jack Bruce, but first of all beggars can't be choosers and second, I had already seen him close up in a very small club many moons ago.
Section 2, Row 4 ... Read 'em and weep!
I took my 4 mexapixel digital camera just in case I could sneak a few shots of the group. It turned out that although cameras are forbidden, no one seemed to care. So I snapped away and got almost 80 photos. As you can see from the photos below, I am not a professional, I didn't have a zoom lens and I was not in a great position to take unencumbered photos. In any case, some of them did turn out OK. I've cropped most of them to cut out the tops of people's heads since almost everyone was standing up for the entire concert.
Jack Bruce seemed to be very animated when the concert began. For a while he was actually moving around the stage more than I had seen him do even twenty years ago. In fact, it seemed to me that he was more energized than either Baker or Clapton. As the concert went on his 62 years of age and liver transplant didn’t diminish his abilities that much, although towards the end he seemed to get a cramp in his left hand and could be seen dropping it from the fret board and shaking it. This is the sixth time I’ve seen Bruce, with the first time being in 1969. Although in playing and singing ability he is not what he once was, he can still play most bass players off the stage and still has the great voice (although not as strong as what it was thirty years ago).
Ginger Baker
Eric Clapton
Sunshine of Your Love
Farewell
NOTE: I will write more when I have some more spare time.
Section 2, Row 4 ... Read 'em and weep!
I took my 4 mexapixel digital camera just in case I could sneak a few shots of the group. It turned out that although cameras are forbidden, no one seemed to care. So I snapped away and got almost 80 photos. As you can see from the photos below, I am not a professional, I didn't have a zoom lens and I was not in a great position to take unencumbered photos. In any case, some of them did turn out OK. I've cropped most of them to cut out the tops of people's heads since almost everyone was standing up for the entire concert.
Jack Bruce seemed to be very animated when the concert began. For a while he was actually moving around the stage more than I had seen him do even twenty years ago. In fact, it seemed to me that he was more energized than either Baker or Clapton. As the concert went on his 62 years of age and liver transplant didn’t diminish his abilities that much, although towards the end he seemed to get a cramp in his left hand and could be seen dropping it from the fret board and shaking it. This is the sixth time I’ve seen Bruce, with the first time being in 1969. Although in playing and singing ability he is not what he once was, he can still play most bass players off the stage and still has the great voice (although not as strong as what it was thirty years ago).
Ginger Baker
Eric Clapton
Sunshine of Your Love
Farewell
NOTE: I will write more when I have some more spare time.
posted by Don Miguel at 9:56:00 AM
