Live Review
Crossroads Guitar Festival
Saturday June 6th
All I can say is, I'm sorry that you were not able
to make this awesome event, because it was practically mini-Woodstock
in my eyes. The festival benefited Eric Clapton’s Crossroads
Center Antigua for addictions.
Here's the run down of the whole day…
Got there around 11:30 AM and checked out the
vintage guitar show they had in one of the buildings. It was
pretty cool, lots of cool gear and stuff, underground amplifier
companies etc..., to show off gear and give test runs. There were
2 stages on the football field next to each other.
Around 12 the first band went on. It consisted
of Neal Schon of journey back in the day, Randy Jackson from American
Idol, and some other guys. They kicked it off with the great ol’
star spangled banner with a twist of Jimmy Hendrix style in
there. Great band to kick it off with some old songs that don’t
get “old.”
Steve Vai pretty much blew over the crowd with his
set. This guy really knows how to make his guitar talk. He
plays kind of a thrash/experimental guitar style music. Really
good stuff that is similar to Joe Satriani (if you know who I am
talking about). On a side note, it was his birthday.
Sonny Landreth was up next with an awesome slide
guitar set that couldn’t be missed!
Larry Carlton hit the stage and played some great
classics that I cannot remember the names of… but you would know them
if you heard them.
Pat Metheny Trio was up to play and that’s when I
headed out to see what the guitar center village was all about.
Walking through the doors the first thing you see is this candy apple
red Jeep Wrangler decked out in guitar accessories. The bumpers
were tubes in the shape of guitars and the seat belts looked like
guitar straps! In the back there was an amp carrier instead of a
tire and two guitars that were retained to the roll bars. Sweet I
must say! A lot of people were there to represent their
companies, like levi's guitar straps, Ernie Ball, Marshall, and Michael
Rowan Custom Guitars just to name a few. Macintosh was also there
showing off there new computer systems by letting people record their
own music and make some tracks. Crate’s world biggest amplifier
was there as well and you could get your picture taken in front of
it. Everyone was jamming out on different guitars and checking
out all the latest gear. Now you might get why it’s called a
festival over just a regular concert.
I skipped out on Pat Metheny Trio, Jerry Douglas,
and John Mclaughlin during that time. Keep in mind every one was
playing 30 minute sets. Once I got back out there Robert Cray was
rocking it out with his band.
Jimmie Vaughan jumped the stage and people just
loved his set! Jimmy is an awesome guitar player and is the
brother of Stevie Ray, a great blues musician that had an unfortunate
death.
There were so many people jamming together on stage
after Jimmy was done its hard to recall who was playing at what
time. What I do remember is that Hubert Sumlin, Jimmy Vaughan,
and guest vocalist David Johansen played for a bit. Bo Diddley
came out for a while and jammed with Vaughan as well. After Bo
Diddley, David Hidalgo rocked the stage for a bit with some really good
tunes of his own.
Joe Walsh got on stage while the temperature just
kept rising closer to that unbearable point. He played some great
classics such as, “Rocky Mountain Way”, “Seems to me”, “Funk #49”, and
“Walk away.” He really knows how to make his guitar talk on
“Rocky Mountain Way” and others in case you didn’t know. Not only
did he use that talk box really well, but he can also play slide guitar
very good as well.
After Joe played we headed back over to the Guitar
Center Village and checked out the guitar auction they had set up to
benefit the Crossroads Centre Antigua. There were many old
guitars there from old greats that have passed on. Eric Clapton
was not the only person to give up guitars, many other musicians just
from this tour donated guitars as well.
I don’t quite remember if it was before or after
this (I believe it was earlier in the day), but Vishwa Mohan Bhatt
played on stage with his custom sitar. He is the creator of the
MOHAN VEENA sitar guitar. Very interesting I must say.
Having an International music man play at this festival is one of the
other things that reminded me of Woodstock. It is apparent that
Woodstock and the Crossroads Guitar Festival are held for two different
reasons, but they do seem to have a similar format.
After a couple more guys played (James Taylor and
Vince Gill) BB King made a prolonged visit to the stage. Jimmy
Vaughan, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, and John Mayer all jammed on stage
together. It was quite amazing I must say! Once in a
lifetime thing right there! So many guitar solos were played it
was mind boggling!
After that amazing long jam session with some of the
greats, Carlos Santana came on and impressed the crowd with his
performance. The only let down with Santana is he didn’t play
“Black Magic Woman”, one of my favorites. None the less he still
did an amazing job.
Good ol’ E.C. (Eric Clapton) took the stage and
played a lot of the old classics, but he also played some really good
blues songs as well. “Cocaine”, “Layla”, and “I Shot the Sheriff”
were some songs he played just to name a few.
At the end of Clapton’s set Jeff Beck came out to
play a song with him. The only thing wrong in this picture was he
only played ONE SONG! I was a little upset by this because Jeff
Beck is a wonderful musician, but decided to give his set up to ZZ Top
which was very nice of him (I think he gave up his set?). I was
looking forward to hearing “Morning Dew” and “I Ain’t Superstitious.”
So the storm is rolling in and the sun has fallen
out of the sky, only one band left to take over and that was the one
and only ZZ Top. They were dressed up in that usual ZZ Top attire
of sparkly suits and all that jazz. These guys played all their
greats including “Legs”, “Tush”, and “La Grange.” The show ended
abruptly due to thunder and lightening, then it started raining
ferociously.
Like I said this was almost like revisiting
Woodstock in my opinion with some of the same great bands and same type
of format. Too bad for those who missed out on this and for those
of you who didn’t, here’s to the memories.
Cody Dulock
staff writer
www.dallasmusic.com