Cream - Royal Albert Hall - London May 2-3-5-6 2005
by Martyn Atkins
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DVD details
Actor: Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Jack BruceDirector: Martyn Atkins
Brand: Alfred
Cinematographer: Jürg V. Walther
Cinematographer: Martyn Atkins
Editor: William Bullen
Producer: Anu Krishnan
Producer: Barry Schulman
Producer: David Horn
Producer: James Pluta
Producer: John Beug
Producer: Kathy Rivkin
Producer: Natalie Johns
Producer: Stephen 'Scooter' Weintraub
Writer: Janine Polla Werner
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), DTS 5.1; English (Original Language), DTS 5.1
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 130 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-10-04
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: WEA970421
Studio: Warner Strat. Mkt.
Product features:
- 2 DVDs
- Cream
- Format 2 DVDs
DVD Reviews of Cream - Royal Albert Hall - London May 2-3-5-6 2005
DVD Review: Fantastic, but where's your wah wah, Eric?
Summary: 4 Stars
I saw both Cream and Blind Faith tours back in the late 1960s and Eric Clapton was so shy on stage, he would stand behind his amps and play with his back to the audience. From the cheap seats, all we could see was his shadow. The band members and I were in our 20s; they were a few years older than me. It was a differet era. No digital anything. No CDs. Records were vinyl and you played them on your turntable and your favorites got played so many times they'd wear out and you'd have to scrape up the cash to buy a new copy. I remember buying Disraeli Gears and marvelling at its phantasmagorical cover art under a blacklight, and then the next year the double album Wheels Of Fire with its remarable "aluminum foil" looking jacket. Still have'em, and that's what was wonderful about 12" LPs with their big album art. The dinky cover art on CDs just is't the same.
But I digress..
Both those concerts are still etched in my memory. This "reunion" concert is truly special. How many of the legendary 60s power trios are even still around and all their members alive?
It must have been quite an experience to sit in the audience for one or more of these four nights at the venerable old Royal Albert Hall. The DVD presentation with regards to sound and video really couldn't be much better, although there are some strange camera angles here and there, but not enough to be annoying. Most of the camera work is shot right on stage, not in front of it pointing up at the musicians which puts you, the viewer right on stage with them. It's VERY up close and personal, lots of extreme close-ups, and in its wide-screen format, I really got the sense that I was standing there on stage with this timeless trio.
I was surprised that unlike most American concerts and filmed concert footage, there was no wide barrier between the audience and the stage Cream performs on. At times, the audience is standing pressed right up against the front of the low stage - no row of angry looking 300 pound security goons with their arms crossed between the viewers and the players.
Jack Bruce looks the worse for wear, rather frail, although he can really belt out these old classics and still has one of the best "whiskey soaked" voices in rock history (along with Procol Harum's Gary Brooker, and the late and sorely-missed Jimmy Dewar of Robin Trower's band).. He smiles and emotes throughout, and his facial expressions in some of the closeups as he glances over at Clapton are simply priceless. And his bass playing is still phenomenal - he plays the four string fretless bass like a lead instead of a backing instrument. What a master of his axe, although the years have taken their toll and there's a chair behind him, against which he sometimes rests while playing. Nothing wrong with that.
Ginger Baker, what is he now, about 100 years old {{grin}}.. is stylish and stunning, surrounded by his massive drum kit, the first drummer I can remember who used two bass drums, which was pretty radical in its day. He HAS aged well, and he still has the chops. His drumming is fluid, nearly flawless, and he makes it look effortless. At times he almost reminds me of an octopus, seeming to be pounding that kit with more than just two arms and two legs, and I couldn't help but smile as he's the only one of the trio who is wearing the souvenir t-shirts for their own concert AT the concerts. He even sneaks in a plug for shirts and other souvenirs at the end of "Pressed Rat And Warthog."
Clapton, well, he gives it his all. He's all over his third of the stage, close-up shots of him tapping his sneakers to the rhythm as he plays. He often looks bathed in sweat but never on the verge of pooping out.
All three band members constantly point to and give credit to each other at the end of many songs.
The wide stage setup is low and minimalist - just a massive bank of amps and a small curved screen behind the band showing something vaguely reminicent of the old Fillmore Joshua light show projection screens, (or for you younger folks, something like a WinAmp visualization).. but it doesn't detract from the essence of this memorable film. The audience mostly sits in awe (lots of audience shots) watching these performances, or jumps to its feet in applause after each song.. the performances on the DVD were culled from all four nights at the Hall, and jump between the four nights from song to song, so you'll see the trio wearing different clothing from one song to the next and wonder why until you realize that all four nights were filmed and then Edited together in some kind of order that must have made sense to someone.
At the end of the second song, Eric Clapton tells the audience "we're going to play everything we know".. this turns out to be an exaggeration, since Cream released about three dozen songs in their short recording career decades ago, but a lot of those songs, if they were performed at these concerts, must have been left on the cutting room floor, as this double DVD only has 19 of them, with a couple of them repeated as "alternate takes" bonus features, which also includes extended interviews with all three members, although shot singly, not together in the same room, which I found strange. There's a brief backstage "green room" segment before an encore, but the sound is so muffled (intentionally?).. that I can't understand what anyone is saying.
As to the bill of fare.. Where's Swlabr? Where's I Feel Free? Where's Tales of Brave Ulysses? They're not there, just to name a few of the "everything we know" that didn't make it onto the released DVDs in this lovely package. Despite it lacking some of my favorites, at least it's also lacking "Mother's Lament", for which, I suppose, we should be thankful.
The original Cream studio albums used a lot of over-dubbing and studio tricks, even string sections, such as on the original recording of Deserted Cities of the Heart. All of that is lacking from this performance. No backing musicians, no strings, no studio tricks, just three wonderful bluesmen/rockers in their sixties, giving it their all. It's remarkable how much sound only three guys can make, although the sound they produce here seems spartan compared to the original records.
I like the shorter songs the best - Badge, N.S.U., Deserted Cities. Some of Clapton's extended jams in this film seem to drag on longer than necessary, and tiptoe into the realm of "noodling."
And, most importantly, to me anyway, a huge part of the whole Cream sound was Clapton's heavy use of the crybaby wah-wah pedal, and pumping the output of his guitar through a Leslie organ ampliier - one of George Harrison's trademark sounds. You'll hear neither the wah wah or the Leslie amp in this concert, and I have to wonder why Clapton chose not to bring them along, because I think they would have given this performance that added 60s ambience and nuance. But alas, we have to live with what they give us, and what's here is still stunning and very touching. They didn't try to note-for-note duplicate their old recordings.
Age has taken its toll on their voices so vocals had to be modified because they just can't sing those high notes or falsettos like they could decades ago. I won't say whether they've improved as musicians - this performance knocked me out but then again, so do the original records. It's just a different take, a different approach, a more mature approach, perhaps. They rock very hard, but they're also more laid back, performing longer stretched-out solos rather than a note-for-note, riff-for-riff tight reproducition of their records. It's hard to quantify.
I have to wonder if the essence and magic of this concert would be lost on the younger generation who were decades from even being born back when Cream recorded and toured in the late 60s. But for the Baby Boomer crowd, this stuff is pure magic. The audience looks like it runs the gamut from folks in their 20s to their 60s. This double DVD set is, to me, a keeper, not a renter, although the packaging stackss one disc offset atop the other rather than using a more conventional double-DVD double flip-over case, which is kinda annoying. But there's a gorgeous fold-out booklet / poster and inner liner stage shot to pretty it up. If, as Clapton says, they did actually perform every song they knew, I would gladly have paid more for a triple DVD set to get those songs that are missing from this package.
While I'm here, I'd also recommend picking up Robin Trower's brand new live DVD concert film, Living Out of Time, and Steve Hackett's astounding DVD concert film Once Above a Time. While both of those legendary composers and guitarists got their fame early on with two bands just as famous and popular in their day as Cream (Procol Harum and Genesis, respectively), they now record and tour with younger supporting musicians in smaller venues, but, unlike Clapton, they both DO bring along all their "tricks of the trade" - which really do, again in my opinion, add to their live performances and which make Clapton and his guitar seem almost starkly sparse in comparison. We're not talking about flash and costumes and visual pyrotechnics here, we're talking about stage presence and musicianship and, well, memories brought alive again.
Despite all the "Clapton is God" chanting over the years, I'd put Steve Hackett (age 56) at the top of the list of the best electric guitarist walking this planet. I don't think anyone can touch him as a technician and a composer of some of the most stunning original music of the many genres he writes and plays, and in Trower's DVD performance, recorded in a small German club, on his 60th birthday late last year, he's absolutely still got it. Riveting to watch, and yet so humble and very very British, in the interview section of his DVD.
But, I digress. This review is about the Cream DVD, and I got sidetracked, so forgive me :) .. but comparisons are sometimes inevitable, and, I hope, useful.
I downgrade this double DVD set one star only for the "missing" effects that made Cream's sound what it was, and for the songs I so wanted to hear them play that just aren't there. But for what it is, it's two hours of sheer memorable entertainment and about as close as we can come to having been in that audience and right up on stage on those special nights in London. Kudos to the trio for deciding to perform together again, and thumbs up to all those folks behind the scenes who made it as good as it is, professionals all at their art.
Description of Cream - Royal Albert Hall - London May 2-3-5-6 2005
CREAM:ROYAL ALBERT HALL 2005 - DVD MovieClassic Rock Music CDs
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