Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Great to meet you Mike..........what a gig....awesome............

Is that a Warwick bass body with a Gibson eb3 neck?

No it's two different basses - sorry to confuse. He played an EB1? (violin shaped - sorry I'm not too good on Gibsons) for the first half or so - then switched to the fretless (Warwick) for the last half. Stormy Monday was a real highlight of the show although Ginger's 10 minute drum solo in Toad clearly showed he's still one of the best drummers in the world - amazing. Just a magical night. Eric had a Leslie behind him - but I didn't hear him use it .

I've heard the Leslie is for "Badge", the George part in the middle.

>I've heard the Leslie is for "Badge", the George part in the middle.

George actually played the other guitar part, from the intro until the Leslie comes in. Clapton played the Leslie part.

Didn't know that.

Yeah the EB-1's were the first violin shaped elecric basses. The original basses are worth a fortune. Felix Pappalardi played them, both original and reissues I believe, he was the reason for the reissues, great sounding basses, very dirty sounding.

Rumour has it that this may have been Felix's bass???

There are setlists and some fan reviews here. I only found a couple of Jack Bruce pics though, and all Warwick...

If anyone would have ended up with it it would have been Jack as Felix produced some of their stuff (all?) and played bass on a song on Goodbye Cream. He was a great musician and is missed, loved his sound and style, love the Gibson players, gotta get me one soon.

It was an enjoyable concert to go to. I went the last two nights. Friday night was the best. The stars really came out: McCartney, Ringo, Chris Squire, Bill Wyman, all of Pink Floyd, Steve Winwood, movie stars, and that’s just the bunch I saw. Jack Bruce is obviously at half speed. In fact he sits on a stool occasionally. Clapton had to take some of the singing chores. Can’t figure out why Jack played the EB1 for the first half, then he switched to a Warwick. He played through two Hartke 8x12 stacks. Clapton played bluesy with all the bravado you would expect from him. He had pedals but rarely used them. He used it on Thursday night but it was hardly to barely noticeable. Friday he didn’t even bother. No wah-wah on White Room?? Isn’t that the big hook? The only thing that was missing was the aggression they once had that was evident on record and probably live. Clapton has kept his chops and of course plays live regularly. For these virtuosos it would be easy to see where time has passed by Baker and Bruce in the R&R world. In fact, Jack says that “Ginger and I are jazzers acting like rockers.” Almost immediately after Cream quit, new bands came on the scene that could make you forget them. But Cream built those early hard rock landscapes for everyone to climb and I give them their due credit.

There was nothing that I really didn’t expect. They played to a crowd as relaxed performers with nothing to prove and as I well expected – Clapton played his Fender’s.

'They played to a crowd as relaxed performers with nothing to prove'

Sad.

I guess you gotta be hungry to play like they used to, the fire that was there in every recording and live recording I've ever heard comes from trying to prove yourself to yourself, I hope I never lose it. Of course if I had ever become famous like them I might have sat around resting on my laurels as well slowly losing what made me famous in the first place.

Mike, Thanks for the update, sounds like you got your moneys worth! Wish I was there with ya. Another friend reported in on fridays show and here's what he had to say...

"It was the best concert ever. Definitely worth the money. The excitement was evident from the band down to the audience for the Friday night show. Would guess that half the audience were from the USA. Eric did most of the talking and the 3 of them seemed to really enjoy the show and each other. Ginger did pimp some t-shirts though. Jack looked kind of frail and had to use a stool every now and then although his voice was strong.
Bakers' drumming really made the show, he really can drive the band even when Jack gets off on some tangents. For the most part they were disciplined. Toad only lasted a little over 10
minutes. Erics' playing was more intense and emotional than has been the case for years.

Eric had 4 black Strats on stage - 2 for regular tuning, 2 for slide(Rollin' and Tumblin'). He had a short stack of 2 "tweed" amps but they looked too new to be Fenders. Also a Leslie. He had 3 foot pedals but couldn't tell what they where. We were 20 rows back and 5 rows up on the left side of the stage. His tone seemed to be Creamy enough
so guess he was using one of the pedals to achieve this"

There's a '56 EB1 on the bay at the moment, banjo tuners and all. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=64402&item=7319373319&rd=1&tc=photo

3500.00 that's not a bad price.