One cant help but admire 3 guys now in their mid-to-late 60's who gave it their physical All. Producing a nice piece of nostalgia, yet musically disappointing.
Bruce once the incarnation of a bass-genius, now barely standing upright after an organ transplant, reduced to an average player. With remnants of acceptable singing & harmonica.
Baker close to 70, once the driving force, now neurologically retarded, plagued by arthritis, hardly able to follow (not to speak of lead) lost it more than once in evry title.
And Clapton on a slow-pitched turntable to meet the smallest common denominator.
They played a selection of Bruce-compositions, surrounded by some blues-standards. And scored like any above average blues-band would have.
CREAM could not be re-united. CREAM wasn't just Baker-Bruce+Clapton, CREAM was a multiple of that. A phenomenon of 3 musicians at their peak, with almost telepathic understanding of a common goal, on their mission with unstoppable fierceness, unboundly innovative.
At these 'Reunions' we were neither looking AT, nor listening TO, anything even close to CREAM.
Strangely they DID accomplish something unexpected: by singling themselves out after each song, they once-and-for-all-time UN-tied the legend.
No need to remember where you were that day in '05 or '06 when they played the 'Royal Albert' or 'Madison Square'
Because it wasn't CREAM.
Bruce once the incarnation of a bass-genius, now barely standing upright after an organ transplant, reduced to an average player. With remnants of acceptable singing & harmonica.
Baker close to 70, once the driving force, now neurologically retarded, plagued by arthritis, hardly able to follow (not to speak of lead) lost it more than once in evry title.
And Clapton on a slow-pitched turntable to meet the smallest common denominator.
They played a selection of Bruce-compositions, surrounded by some blues-standards. And scored like any above average blues-band would have.
CREAM could not be re-united. CREAM wasn't just Baker-Bruce+Clapton, CREAM was a multiple of that. A phenomenon of 3 musicians at their peak, with almost telepathic understanding of a common goal, on their mission with unstoppable fierceness, unboundly innovative.
At these 'Reunions' we were neither looking AT, nor listening TO, anything even close to CREAM.
Strangely they DID accomplish something unexpected: by singling themselves out after each song, they once-and-for-all-time UN-tied the legend.
No need to remember where you were that day in '05 or '06 when they played the 'Royal Albert' or 'Madison Square'
Because it wasn't CREAM.