Cream to reform

Subject: Cream to reform
From: GUEST,Woodsie
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 07:27 AM

Eric Clapton has announced that Cream are to reform in the new year! The start rehearsals in January followed by a week residence ar The Royal Albert Hall sometime in early spring!

What do mudcatters think?

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Splott Man
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 07:34 AM

Wow!

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: woodsie
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 07:38 AM

There's quite a bit on the web e.g. see here But no dates yet! The tickets will probabley be sky high!

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: MBSLynne
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 09:03 AM

Yeah..Wow!

Always a danger though, when super groups reform after many years break, that they won't be up to their former standard. Mind you with these three..... Look forward to it with interest.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Cluin
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 09:05 AM

Reform? You mean they're gonna give up drugs?

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Bassic
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 10:10 AM

Woodsie..........if you get any tickets, can I come too? :-)

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 10:15 AM

There's no way I could afford tickets, even without adding the cost of transatlantic travel.

But I think I could shell out for a CD and maybe even rent or buy a DVD. Think they'll be marketing anything like that?

;^)

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Mooh
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 10:28 AM

So, which one of them is short of cash?

Actually, I hope they can make the grade, I loved 'em the first time around.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 10:32 AM

Who? I'll have to ask my dad about this.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 11:00 AM

I'm excited about this one! I heard about it last week!

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 11:03 AM

This is terrific. I don't care why they're doing it, if they're still as good as they were, I'll be tickled. Can't afford to go see them live, of course, but will certainly hear any CD they make.

Also must remember to get a new stash for the occasion.

;-D

..xx..e

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Dead Horse
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 12:25 PM

They must be *Cheese* by now!

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Scooby Doo
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 12:34 PM

I was still in nappies when they folded.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: C-flat
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 12:48 PM

I'm amazed to hear this but I'd certainly go if I got the chance.
It will almost certainly be a money-spinner for them, wether any of them needs it is another matter, and I suspect that they'll do somewhat better than their fee as described on an old contract that I have on my wall dating back to 1966, between the Robert Stigwood organisation (for Cream) and the Kirklevington Country Club on Teesside.


BAND NOT TO ARRIVE LATER THAN 7pm

2X45 MINUTES SPOTS BETWEEN 8pm AND 11pm

BAND NOT TO PLAY A VENUE WITHIN A RADIUS OF 5 MILES FROM 4 WEEKS PRIOR TO BOOKING AND 3 WEEKS AFTER.

FEE £75 TO BE PAID IN CASH TO THE BAND


Assuming that they were on equal money that's £25 quid EACH!!!!

That wouldn't sting Erics' guitars for one night at the Albert Hall today!


C-flat.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: C-flat
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 12:50 PM

.........or string ..

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: el_punkoid_nouveau
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 02:35 PM

Shame they're only doing a residency at the RAH - a few nights at NEC and/or G-Mex would go down well, for those of who would not find it easy to get to London...

After EC's last couple of albums, he should be playing really well - I saw a documentary many years ago where he and Jack Bruce got together at his home in Guildford and jammed - brilliant.

epn

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: fiddler
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 02:39 PM

Praps if it all goes well and they all keep their cool offstage - who knows we can all hope!

Grand one

Andy

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: grumpy al
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 02:45 PM

I hope Clapton and Bruce are still fighting for supremacy on stage, as that is what made them so exciting first time around.

I know... I was there

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 02:49 PM

*sigh*

pass...

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Wesley S
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 03:11 PM

My guess is the Jack Bruce or Ginger Baker put the deal together down at the crossroads.....

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 03:22 PM

£75? I don't think they got paid that much as residents at the Railway, West Hampstead. I think it cost 5/- (that's 25p) to get in. I still have my membership card. Wonder if that gets me a concession at the Albert Hall?

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 05:14 PM

Why do I feel that I am about to be milked as a punter, to line someone's pockets, who needs it less than I do? Cream were great in their day, till they bottomed out. They developed individually a lot since then - EC certainly has. Why backtrack down memory lane? For what purpose other than money and getting some blue rinses hot in their bloomers?

As for the £75, 40 years on and I can have a great night listening to live music by up and coming artists who get paid that or less in some of the UK clubs. I won't mention names, as I don't want to embarass them or somehow inadvertedly downplay their value (which is well over the £75).

Tickets for the Cream concert won't be less than £50, I bet. Equivalent to at least 10 good nights out in some club. I know to whom I'd rather give my money.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 11:46 PM

Ya-HOOOO!
It would be great if there were some new tunes out of this.
As for not needing the money, I'd say two of them could use a few bucks. Eric doesn't need this, so I think he's doing it for the right reasons.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 12:05 AM

None of them need the money. I just hope Jack & Ginger don't come to blows backstage!

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: eltham man
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 03:14 AM

Poppagator don't worry about forking out for a transatlantic trip they are supposed to be doing some US dates as well!

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 03:17 AM

Hmmm, wonder how much THOSE are gonna go for?

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 03:40 AM

Ginger Baker; the ORIGINAL 'Wild Man of Rock', what a character. I do hope he's not all clean pressed and sanitised now, can't see him in an Armani suit somehow.
Giok

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 03:41 AM

Ginger? I don't think so... he wouldn't be himself.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 04:59 AM

The album "Fresh Cream" epitomized the whole Hippy Scene for me. I do believe it's the first album I ever heard while smoking weed.

It's like a sense memory for me now. I will aways have flashes back to those days of lightheaded, but deepest and often darkest adolescence made better via some of the most fantastic musicians who ever formed a band.

It wasn't until "Dark Side of the Moon" and Pink Floyd that I felt that utter pleasure of being immersed in a "sound" again, and this time my first time high on hallucinogens.

I am NOT a druggie, don't get me wrong, and I have loved lots of music straight as a proverbial arrow, but there IS something about those times and those groups which will stay firmly and happily embedded in my psyche forever (except for the now-missing brain cells, of course.)

;-)

..xx..e

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 08:49 AM

...these 'comeback' gigs never meet up to the standards set by the original formation. Everybody's older, less frenetic, more staid, and the playing will be lackluster (Clapton hasn't 'played' since Blind Faith)....this is just three past-their-prime musicians cashing in on a memory, making a quick buck off what people remember (or don't)...these guys don't have the energy to pull it off. The days of jamming in E 14+ minutes on 'Spoonful' are long gone. Clapton has tried this already with the disappointing 'From The Cradle.' To do it right, everybody would have to time travel forty years back to the sixties, start doing hard drugs again, and play very, very hard and loud for a long time. Can you see that happening? I don't. At best it will wind up sounding like warmed over Derek & The Dominoes or, if we are really lucky, Delaney & Bonnie. Save yourself some money/disappointment and dust off or repurchase any of the old Cream recordings.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 11:11 AM

OUCH!

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Les from Hull
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 12:54 PM

Well I think it's only fair to wait an listen to what they sound like. They were great first time round - who knows what they'll be like this time round. If they're expensive and/or jaded THEN we can slag them off. They may be even better (but that would take some doing).

Any real fan will have no need to buy Cream recordings as they will already have the boxed CDset.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 12:55 PM

Ooohh the Boxed CD set! Maybe for Christmas??

;-D

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: GUEST,Whistle Stop
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 01:36 PM

I bought all the Cream albums the first time around, although I was only 12 when they broke up, so I never got to see them live. Sure, they were great, in their way and for their time. But I can't really see this reunion being much more than a nostalgia trip.

The psychedelic stuff was good, and I'm sure they can still play it as well as (or better than) they ever did. But the freshness of the concept is gone, so it will just be rehash for nostalgia's sake. As for the blues? The fact is, we've all learned a lot about what makes for a good blues performance since Cream was ripping it up back in the late '60s. If you take the rosy nostalgic glow off, those old 20-minute blues jams really don't amount to much (Clapton himself has said this, many times). Part of what made their stuff special at the time was that the audience was discovering it for the first time, and it was being played by young white guys ("just like us!") who had only themselves discovered it a few years before. So the guys who sounded like cutting-edge musicians back then sound more like self-indulgent young pups now.

Still, there's money to be made. Count on the shows giving rise to a DVD and multi-CD package, which is undoubtedly a big part of the motivation for this.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 04:52 PM

The best concert that I have heard in 40 years was Jack Bruce, Dick Heckstall-Smith and The Norman Beaker Band playing at the Old Vic in Nottingham in December 1987. Jack had not lost his fire then and he was pretty hot battling against a lousy sound system in Nottingham about three years ago. However he has had a liver transplant just over a year ago and Ginger is reported not to be able to keep up a sustained drumming action due to a polo accident damaging his arm a number of years ago so I have mixed feelings about the re-union. All things being equal however I don't think we'll see any namby pamby nostalgia trip from these three.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: GUEST,Steve Latimer
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 05:17 PM

They are one of the few bands from that era who have the luxury of being able to reform. Not many others where all the original members are alive.

I was a big Cream fan. Let's hope that they still have the vitality they did.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: BanjoRay
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 06:06 PM

If they're as good as the Incredible String Band were at Sidmouth when they reformed they'll get strung up from the nearest lamppost.
Ray

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: GUEST,milk monitor
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 06:15 PM

They'll be older and mellower, just like all of us. Two out of three of them have seen one of their children die in the intervening period. They can't be carbon copies of themselves back then and we shouldn't really expect them to be.

But they are still here and I hope everyone enjoys the moment. It would be a shame if they are setting themselves up for a slating. But I suspect more of us will revel in the nostalgia than condemn them for giving us the opportunity to do so?

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: number 6
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 07:42 PM

I'm a fan of Jack Bruce who is a musician of great respect. BTW, has anyone any info on a collaboration he did with Carla Bley on music based on the novel Under the Volcanoe.

Anyway in regard to reforming Cream, interesting, though not looking forward to it (myself) with great anticipation.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 09:18 PM

During the heyday of Cream, Clapton was known for how many notes he could cram into a solo. Since then, he has learned that the spaces between the notes are as important as the notes themselves. In fact, if Clapton is the master of anything on guitar, it's knowing when not to play. It'll be interesting to see how he applies what he's learned about not playing to a context where playing as hard and fast as possible was always the object.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 10:26 AM

....don't see how he can apply what he learned about not playing in a three-piece band BWL....Clapton will have lots of holes to fill. It will be interesting to see if he can play like he used to........

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Brakn
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 11:21 AM

"During the heyday of Cream, Clapton was known for how many notes he could cram into a solo."

I don't think so. There were many other guitarists you could hang that one on but not Clapton. (IMHO)

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: C-flat
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 12:20 PM

Agreed Brakn, I never regarded Clapton as a "shredder", but it will be interesting to hear him work in a three piece again. Much more work involved carrying all the guitar work himself but I personally like that stripped-down sound and reckon Clapton will do the business again.

C-flat.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: Terry K
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 12:32 PM

Kirklevington was great in the 60's. We used to go there & drink loads of beer, which we all thought made us much more attractive to the women. Then when we didn't pull we could listen to the music. Clapton used to be there in his John Mayall days.

cheers, Terry

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: GUEST,Whistle Stop
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 02:54 PM

I wouldn't count on Cream being a three-piece this time around. My guess is that, like a lot of other bands these days, there will be three "official" members augmented by assorted backing musicians.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 03:59 PM

...then that wouldn't officially be Cream, my opinion...that would be the three original members of Cream and some other musicians...using the Cream moniker in that case would be misleading....

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 08:54 PM

Then again the whole focus for me has been what Clapton is going to do......but I wonder if Jack Bruce still has those serious bluesharp chops like he did on "Traintime?"

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: PoppaGator
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 09:17 PM

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.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: GUEST,Whistle Stop
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 09:31 AM

Can anyone can name me a "60's supergroup" that plays these days without other musicians augmenting their on-stage sound? The Rolling Stones? Nope. The Who? Nope. Anyone else?

I think it's especially unlikely for a trio to come out alone. If Cream plays without any other supporting musicians, I'll be amazed.

Subject: RE: Cream to reform
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 02:05 PM

The link posted towards the top of the thread says the band is "eager to treat fans to a series of nostalgic performances." If they augment the original sound with backup guitars and keyboards, accordion or whatever, it won't be very nostalgic.