[Scott F.]

This just in from the Chicago Tribune.......



Clapton may take festival to Chicago

By Greg Kot
Published March 20, 2007

A major announcement is expected later this week about Eric Clapton bringing his Crossroads Guitar Festival to a stadium in the Chicago area this summer.

Several sources have confirmed that Clapton has recruited an all-star lineup of guitarists for the festival to raise money for Crossroads Centre Antigua, the addiction treatment and education center the 61-year-old British rock star founded in 1997.

The festival debuted in Dallas in 2004 with a lineup that included Carlos Santana, Joe Walsh, Robert Cray, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Hubert Sumlin and Jimmie Vaughan, among others.

Several of those artists are expected to return this year, joined by a cross-section of blues, country and rock guitar virtuosos.

Among the performers to be announced will be Steve Winwood, several sources say, who will join Clapton for a collaboration on songs recorded by Blind Faith, their short-lived '60s super group.

****end Tribune story****

The first Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival was absolutely phenomenal. I was lucky enough to have a press pass for all three days. The line up of axemen was like none other I can remember. All genre's were covered.

If you get a chance, you have to go to this event. If so, look me up. I'll be there (again) 

Heres a link to the first ECCGF that I wrote about over at TNT.
ECCGF on TNT part one of three


Hubert Sumlin, Jimmy Vaughn, EC, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray


Johnny Lang


Robert Randolph's little brother



...just thought some of you guys might be interested 

[alotaklipsch]

Yaman, and I am definately gonna be there

[mcrespo71]

Wow, I may have to visit my family in the Chicago area during this time!

[gooberdude]

i had no clue Robert Randolph's brother was a musician..what a talented family.  Robert is a spark plug if there ever was one.

[WEEZ]

oohhh boy...

[Scott F.]

It's official 


Stay tuned to EcAccess.cc for your chance to get tickets 48 hrs. before anybody else!

And this:
 
Tickets for the Crossroads Guitar Festival will go on sale to the public on Saturday, March 31 at 10am Central Time (11am EST) via www.ticketmaster.com or Ticketmaster phone charge at 312-559-1212 or Ticketmaster retail outlets. Both reserved and general admission tickets will be available for this event. All tickets will be priced at $90 plus applicable ticketing/service charges. The ticket price includes parking for the day and the concert begins at NOON.

 
03/21/07 / Eric Announces Crossroads Festival!
Stay tuned to EcAccess.cc for your chance to get tickets 48 hrs. before anybody else!

OVER 20 OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST GUITARISTS PLAY SIDEMEN TO EACH OTHER ON ONE STAGE, FOR ONE DAY, TO SUPPORT ONE CAUSE
ERIC CLAPTON ANNOUNCES
CROSSROADS GUITAR FESTIVAL
JULY 28, 2007 CHICAGO
Day-Long Festival To Feature Legendary Music And Collaborations Including:
Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, BB King, Willie Nelson, Jeff Beck, Vince Gill, Sheryl Crow, Buddy Guy and John Mayer

(New York, NY, March 23, 2007) – Credited throughout his career with creating super sounds in super groups, the ultimate Clapton collaboration will take place July 28, 2007 when he gathers the past, present and future of guitar music onto one stage for an incredible full day musical event. Announced today, the second Crossroads Guitar Festival, scheduled for July 28, 2007 at Toyota Park in Chicago, will be a cornerstone of this year’s summer music festival season. Profits from the Festival will benefit The Crossroads Centre in Antigua, a treatment and education facility founded by Clapton for chemically dependent persons.

Since its inception, Clapton’s vision for the Crossroads Guitar Festival has been to create an event where his friends and contemporaries can have fun and jam together for the benefit of a good cause. This year’s Festival will feature a full day of musical performances with once-in-a-lifetime guitar collaborations. Known as pioneers in their field, the roster of artists spans old and new, from BB King to John Mayer (anticipated guest list below). The audience can expect unrivaled entertainment, brilliant guitar work, surprise guests and impromptu jams that are the hallmarks of these performers.

The first Crossroads Guitar Festival, in June 2004 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, was an unprecedented collection of guitar icons from blues, rock and contemporary music. The sold-out show was chronicled in a 2-disc DVD that has since gone on to become one of the world’s top-selling music DVD’s, recently achieving the 8x platinum mark in the United States alone.
“The Crossroads Festival is the realization of a dream for me, to gather a group of amazingly talented musicians to perform on one stage,” said Clapton. “The Crossroads performers are all musicians I admire and respect.”

Additional Festival artists and elements to be announced shortly.

Tickets for the Crossroads Guitar Festival will go on sale to the public on Saturday, March 31 at 10am Central Time (11am EST) via www.ticketmaster.com or Ticketmaster phone charge at 312-559-1212 or Ticketmaster retail outlets. Both reserved and general admission tickets will be available for this event. All tickets will be priced at $90 plus applicable ticketing/service charges. The ticket price includes parking for the day and the concert begins at NOON.
About Toyota Park:
Conveniently located just 15 minutes southwest of Downtown Chicago (at 71st and Harlem in Bridgeview), Toyota Park (www.toyotapark.com) is Chicagoland’s newest and most exciting outdoor concert facility.
For Photos of the first Crossroads Festival, follow this link.

CURRENT ARTIST LISTING CONFIRMED

Jeff Beck
Doyle Bramhall II
Eric Clapton
Robert Cray
Sheryl Crow
Vince Gill
Buddy Guy
BB King
Alison Krauss and Union Station
Sonny Landreth
Albert Lee
Los Lobos
John Mayer
John McLaughlin
Willie Nelson
Robert Randolph
Hubert Sumlin
Derek Trucks
Jimmie Vaughan
Steve Winwood

About Crossroads
Founded in 1997, Crossroads Centre, Antigua was created to provide treatment and education to chemically dependent persons, those with other compulsive addictive behaviors, their families and significant others. Treatment is provided through residential care, family and aftercare programs. The pathway to recovery is founded on the movement toward a change in lifestyle. Crossroads Centre, Antigua also operates a 16 bed halfway-house called The Bevon House (exclusively for local Antiguan residents) and facilitates a school-based education series, Breaking the Cycle, in all local schools. www.crossroadsantigua.org
Posted by EC Access

[chgolatin2]

Finally!  cant wait.  I LOVE CHICAGO MY TOWN!

[westcoast]

I've been trying to order tickets this morning.  Online ordering at Ticketmaster tells me no tickets are available.  I've sent an email to customer service (!) asking whether this is a system problem or whether the show really is sold out.  I finally reached the Chicago telephone number for Ticketmaster, went through the stupid online prompts, and received the message that no tickets are available.  This only an hour after tickets are supposed to be available to the general public.  No way to speak with a human being, of course.   

Any suggestions on how I can actually buy tickets?  Scott F.?  Anyone??

Just want to say, as always, that I LOVE TICKETMASTER!!   

[Scott F.]

Hate to tell you this, my brother has a membership at EC Access (a Clapton fan site) and they offered 1000 tickets for sale on Thursday. I logged on (in his stead) to buy a pair. I was never able to gat any. EC Access said that batch sold out in less than 6 minutes.

My brother logged onto ticketmaster this morning just before they went on sale. At 10am precisely, he started filling out the form for tickets. When he hit submit, it took 7 minutes to process the request. In turn, in that 7 minutes, they had sold all the tickets on the stadium sides and playing field. We ended up with tickets all the way back behind the goal line.

With the tickets selling at that pace, I'd bet they sold out in less than 30 minutes.

About your only choice now is to hit a scalper or eBay (don't forget Craigslist). Tell you what though, I'm trying to get press passes for the event. I've contacted Clapton's PR firm and I'm waiting to hear back from them. Once I get things arranged with them, my brother might offer up our tickets. It will probably be a couple of weeks before I know anything though.

[westcoast]

Thanks for responding, Scott!  Yep, I finally spoke with a Ticketmaster agent late this afternoon.  Confirmed that the show was SOLD OUT.  WOW!!!   I may decide to go to the secondary market; I wanted to take my son to the show and party around Chicago a bit.  Anyway, meantime I'll be enjoying the DVD of the 2004 Festival in Dallas.  One of the best concert DVD's I've seen, no question! 

[Scott F.]

If you look closely at the Eric Johnson segment, you'll see where he's walking off stage and they show a crowd shot taken from the back of the stage. The guy you see in the foreground with a big straw golf hat on and a camera in hand, well.......thats me  I was shooting it for TNT-Audio. In fact, in last month's Vintage Guitar magazine, they used one of my shots for the EC and JJ Cale interview.

[westcoast]

Here's a heads up...for those of us not able to get tickets to the show (30,000 tickets sold in 17 minutes), msn.com is presenting a webcast of Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival taking place TODAY in Chicago.  Scheduled to start at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time.  Here's the link:

http://music.msn.com/crossroads?GT1=10188

Enjoy!!

[Scott F.]

Hey westcoast!

my brother and I were one of the lucky few. we are sitting on the back left surrounds waiting for the festivities to start. the weather is decent, a little overcast and a tad humid. the stadium is starting to fill up. Should be one heck of a good show (even though I didn.t get press passes for this one).

[Sigfreed]

I was there and it was a fantastic day of music.
Hey i am watching it again now!!

stream here!  aa

http://entimg.msn.com/i/ExperienceData/p1-6/us/x.htm?sh=MIC&ep=Crossroads&ch=0

[westcoast]

Hey Scott and Sig,

Thanks for noticing the update.  Looking at about three hours of the feeds so far, no doubt it was an awesome show!!      Who wants to post a quick concert highlights post, or at least a short list of your favorite performers?     

[Scott F.]

Hiya Westcoast,

Well, if you are on hour 3, you've got 7+ more to go 

When it comes to the 'best', Sig will probably have a different opinion since music is such a personal thing. For me I'd rank it this way;

- Bill Murray as MC. It's home town kid made good and he wore it all over sleeve. They couldn't have picked a better person for the job. Bill opened the show with a little three cord song (that he butchered pretty bad). Clapton had to come out and help him finish. That was pretty funny.
- The Blind Faith songs with Eric and Steve Winwood, absolute top shelf and I doubt we'll ever see that again.
- Jeff Beck - I saw Jeff briefly do two songs a couple of years ago. This time he did a 40+ minute set and he just plain rocked. He absolutely held a shreaders clinic on stage Saturday. His bassist Tal Wilkenfeld is an true phenom.
- Johnny Winter - Johnny looked like he had one foot in the grave. Hearing him play again was a real treat for me. Last time I saw him was back in the late 70's.
- Susan Tedeshi with her husband Derek Trucks and his band. I'm here to tell you, they were flat smokin'.
- Vince Gill and Albert Lee - Albert is one helluva picker and Vince always puts on a great live show.

The show wasn't without a glitch or two. They had a two sided rotating stage that had a divider separating the two sides. There were more than a few instances when the guy running the soundboard didn't have a clue who was soloing or singing. In turn it took him a while to find the right slider to bring up into balance. The same guy often left instruments out of the mix, that or left the bass set too high. All in all not great but on the other hand he/she didn't mess it up continuously.

From the sound of it, this likely will be a recurring event. I'd bet it will travel to different locations across the States and probably the UK, every few years.

[westcoast]

Thanks, Scott!!!  Excellent recap...   

I keep going back to the MSN feed at different times...haven't seen the "Blind Faith remakes" yet, but I've seen the Jeff Beck set and the Derek & Susan show...WOW!!!  JB is flat smokin', and what's the story on his bass player?  She is very young...and very good.  Derek is amazing, and Susan can flat play her guitar, yes??

Excellent idea for a production like this...a tribute to guitar players and to the guitar.  What about a trip to Europe next time??  Who do you think would be on the "wish list"?