I can't imagine the Cream reunion involving any extra backup players. Would be neither necessary nor desireable, regardless of how much any of the members might have slowed down.

I saw these guys on their first American tour, when they were not yet widely known and were being worked like dogs, with one-nighters every night in some of the tiniest out-of-the-way venues. They played long and hard every night, too. Clapton was a big name, of course, but really known only to hard core blues enthusiasts and stone hippies, not a very large demographic. The other two memebrs were complete unknowns in the US until the band was formed, so they only drew an audience of the tragically hip -- not a stadium-size crowd by any means.

I saw them at the South Bend (Indiana) Civic Auditorium, a fair-sized venue in a sleepy college town. The gig was fairly well-attended, but NOT sold out.

The interesting fact is that, on the previous night, they had played the weekly barn dance at Plymouth, Indiana, a tiny crossroads in the farmland 20-30 miles south of town. That promoter or tour manager or whoever was working those boys to death!

Friends of mine had the contract to do the light show, and they managed to get after-the-show backstage passes for a whole group of us. I remember Jack holding forth, trying to be polite while dealing with the fans, while Eric and Ginger sat alone and silent on stools in opposite corners of the big empty room (I think it was actually a White Room, if memory serves), each hiding his face behind a newspaper that was audibly rattling because they had such bad cases of the amphetamine jitters. Not all that glamourous a lifestyle when you look back at it.