Clapton and Winwood

So it was my birthday on June 17 and as a gift my sister and some other family and friends pooled money together to send Nate and I to see Eric Clapton and Stevie Winwood at the X the night after. I should have talked about this earlier, but I just bought the DVD of the concert at Madison Square Gardens and I'm fired up all over again! If this isn't the best concert I've seen, it's definitely in the Top 3. I've seen the Who, Clapton two other times and a slew of other modern rock acts and lower profile blues players. But this show...

It was all Winwood. I could listen to this man sing for days. There's a subtle power in his voice but it has an easy timbre to it as well. And if any of you are thinking that Winwood is some kind of pansy or that I'm sellin' out somehow for saying this, you haven't heard him belt out Jimi's Voodoo Chile. Not this Slight Return, pop bullshit. I'm talkin' about 12 minutes of Jimi magic on Electric Ladyland that Winwood actually played keys on back in the day. Seriously, I'm talkin' goosebumps on my taint! 

Everyone knows Clapton can play. He's old and has rehashed things to a point where it's tricky for him to get into it right away. But when he focuses and sets his mind to blowing yours, he does it in a way that you couldn't anticipate unless you're on a similar par in your art or craft.  

The Madison Square Gardens concert was their first of the tour and I can tell you that they were MUCH better in St. Paul. This was simply a warm up...getting comforable with each other. 

My take on this is simple though I would love to make it sound more insightful and profound. There is a mastery that we in a younger generation are still privileged to witness. Not only a mastery, but a compound of excellence and wisdom and age that can't be substituted. It's something universal that only genius can convey through different age groups and backgrounds. Those words do it no justice...which is why people have their arts. But this was the nature of the music Nate and I witnessed at the X and you can catch a glimpse of on the Madison Square Gardens DVD. 

Check it out...don't check it out. Whatever. I just can't contain myself.

Ben