The only gig Eric Clapton was ever “satisfied” with
For any artist like Eric Clapton, there comes a point where shows start to blend together after a while.
A lot of these guys know of no other life than playing music onstage, and even if they have some shakeups every now and again, it all comes back to that moment every night where everyone locks in perfectly on an important moment of the song. But if you ask Clapton, that kind of satisfaction are a lot fewer and far between than most people think.
Although anyone of Clapton’s calibre could make anything sound great in the right context, there’s a chemistry factor that comes from every single rock and roll band. Bands can have the best musicians in the world and be able to sound fantastic when playing someone else’s tune, but if they don’t have that musical mojo together, there’s not going to be any real soul to the music half the time.
But even by rockstar standards, Clapton seemed to click with nearly everyone he worked with. There was always going to be a slight whiff of 1980s cheese coming from his work with Phil Collins, but throughout his career, his work with everyone from Roger Waters to George Harrison to Derek and the Dominos were always far beyond any other rock and roll troubadour. Clapton had a way of inhabiting the song, and yet Cream always seemed to be one notch above everybody.
Clapton was always in fine form ever since he left The Yardbirds, but bringing Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker into the equation gave them a lot more musical bite to them. Every one of them could play circles around every other band in the scene, and whether it was taking on jazz music, playing the occasional novelty tune, or casually inventing heavy metal, nothing was off the table. Everything seemed perfect on paper, but since Baker and Bruce got along about as well as oil and water, it wasn’t going to last very long.
In fact, most people would be shocked that they even made it for those few months they were together. Bruce had his moments where he would lob his stand-up bass at the drummer before they even joined Cream, but even if ‘Slowhand’ could look on in horror at both of his bandmates fighting, he felt that one of their finest performances came from one of their lowest personal moments.
By the end of the 1960s, Cream were essentially done, but Clapton remembered a show in Philadelphia where everything turned around, saying, “I remember one night in Philadelphia with Cream. It was near the end of our touring together [in 1968]. We knew it was over. We were just having a good time playing. And I remember thinking, ‘This is as great as it will ever be.’ Have I ever been satisfied? Definitely for one night, yeah.”
And while Clapton went on to much bigger and better things once he hit on tracks like ‘Wonderful Tonight’ or ‘Tears in Heaven’, there was always going to be some part of him trailing back to Cream as well. That kind of high is something that musicians chase their whole lives, and even if it wasn’t under the best circumstances, the fact that it happened at all should be considered a miracle.
Because Clapton knew better than anybody that the search for everything to sound that perfect is never going to last. Every musician knows all too well that perfection is something that they’ll never catch, but even if it leaves people with a bittersweet feeling when they get close to it, it’s always worth it to go onstage and see if that magic shines on you for one night.
