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Clapton and Winwood Break Out Blind Faith, Hendrix at First Supergig

It wasn’t billed as a Blind Faith reunion, but Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton kicked off their three-night stand at New York’s Madison Square Garden Monday night with “Had To Cry Today.” And through the course of their twenty-song set they’d cover the entire A-side of 1969’s Blind Faith — the only album by the supergroup — hitting “Can’t Find My Way Home,” “Well … All Right” and “Presence of the Lord.” (Full set list after the jump.) When Clapton and Winwood converged in London last week for rehearsals — with an all-star backing band consisting of bassist Willie Weeks, keyboardist Chris Stainton and drummer Ian Thomas — they decided to choose songs from each other’s catalogs to jam on. “There’s some perspective material that’s quite intricate and tricky and has got a lot of stuff going on,” Winwood told Rolling Stone before the gig. “And in some ways it’s best to head for simpler territory and then let the performance take over. Otherwise you spend all your time trying to remember bits and remember parts. So we’ve kind of erred a little bit on the simpler side. There’s a shed-load of material and we don’t have time to do all. We’ve honed it down and kept things that are better and more enjoyable to play.” At MSG they touched on Winwood’s stints in Traffic, busting out “No Face, No Name, No Number,” “Pearly Queen” and “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” on which Winwood laid down a nasty guitar solo. Clapton sang the blues on “Forever Man,” “After Midnight” and “Crossroads.” They also played three tracks by their mutual friend Jimi Hendrix: The fourth song of the night was “Changes,” from Band of Gypsys, and later in the set they offered the one-two punch of “Little Wing” and “Voodoo Child,” with Clapton offering blistering solos. In the middle of the set, Clapton appeared alone, singing “Ramblin’ On My Mind,” which he first recorded with John Mayall’s Blues Breakers in 1966. Following that, Winwood took the stage by himself, pumping

Published: 2008-02-26
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News, Live Shows

SXSW: R.E.M Step on the Gas, Van Morrison Keeps It Simple

In an interview earlier this year, R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck promised me that the band would try to play every song from their new studio album in concert. They did better than try, in their headlining set at Stubb’s BBQ on the opening night of SXSW. R.E.M. played all but one of the eleven tracks on Accelerate, and they plunged into each song, especially the fast ones, with a joyful fury. In the very first number, “Living Well Is the Best Revenge,” singer Michael Stipe turned his breathless chanting on the record into a manic harangue, like a preacher about to explode in his pulpit. During “Man-Sized Wreath” Stipe made a wreath over his head with his arms as Buck and guitarist Scott McCaughey fired cannonball power chords and McCaughey and bassist Mike Mills sang high harmonies like mocking angels. And in “Hollow Man,” its quiet deceptive start blew up into an impassioned chorus, with Buck executing his old Pete Townshend-like leaps. The other half of the twenty-three-song show ran almost the entire R.E.M. timeline, going back to “Second Guessing” from 1984’s Reckoning but not avoiding highpoints of the recent, “troubled” years such as “Imitation of Life” as the band fought to find a new equilibrium after the departure in 1997 of original drummer Bill Berry. “Auctioneer (Another Engine),” from 1985’s Fables of the Reconstruction, was as concise and dynamic as the new album’s title track, and you could hear the strands of jangle and faith connecting the decades, from “Fall on Me” to “Walk Unafraid” and, in the final encore, “Man on the Moon.” But the R.E.M. on Accelerate is explicit about the national distress. Stipe, in a talkative mood, described how the new album’s “Houston” was his reaction to former First Lady Barbara Bush’s small-minded comments about the Texas invasion of Katrina exiles in 2

Published: 2008-03-13
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News, SXSW