A little after 10pm on Sunday at the Moody Center, after two full nights of Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival, the host strolled onstage in a stacked arena to perform a full and final set. The lead-in, a mind-boggling 14-plus hours of arch six-string curation, again crowned Eric Clapton that which emcee Bill Murray couldn’t quite utter despite religious metaphors all weekend: God.
(In)famously both an addict and alcoholic, the king of English guitarists saved himself through recovery, so the eighth iteration of his fundraiser for the Crossroads Centre Antigua pulled out all the stops as usual and then some. Although the benefit began in 1999 at Madison Square Garden, the Cotton Bowl christened the first Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas, 2004. B.B. King, Bo Diddley, Buddy Guy, Carlos Santana, ZZ Top, and dozens of pioneering guitar acts transformed that weekend into Friday Night Lights-like mythology.
At the third one in Chicago, 2010, Clapton’s consigliere Doyle Bramhall II introduced to a national audience unsigned Austin bluesman Gary Clark Jr., whose ensuing Hendrix-at-Woodstock cameo made him an instant star.
Clark caught a sweet spot in this marathon extravaganza – 6.5 hours in Saturday and 7.5 on Sunday – digging into a luxurious three-quarters-of-an-hour set as direct support to Clapton. Thanking Bramhall, Clapton, Jimmie Vaughan, and Austin, the local guitar hero strutted his new soul devotion (“True Lies”) whilst also discharging the blues beacons that got him there, “Bright Lights” and “When My Train Pulls In.” Clark workshopped all summer at Antone’s so both looks lit up the venue.
In such true fashion, the Live Music Capital figured crucially all weekend.
Saturday shot the biggest fireworks, raining down a meteor shower of one-time collaborations and moments. Between the revolving stage and two tiny B-grade platforms on either side of the mainstage, not more than two or three minutes passed all weekend when someone didn’t bend a string. The effect proved tidal and it will take weeks, maybe, to unpack all the Roman candles that went off this weekend.
Emcee-for-life Murray opened reverentially goofy, until Clapton emerged picking out Robert Johnson’s immortal “Crossroads,” which the Stratocaster fiend took possession of in the Sixties with Cream. Slowhand then sat in with Cajun guitar sorcerer Sonny Landreth, opener both days. That tripped off a mushroom cloud of mashups, beginning with Memphis’ former prodigy Eric Gales uncorking “Voodoo Child” with Joe Bonamassa and Marcus King.
Before one could recover, Daniel Santiago and Pedro Martins ached an acoustic caressing of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy” on the B-stage. Covers there slayed all day. Bramhall and Charlie Sexton licked “Cinnamon Girl” and Arc Angels hit “Living in a Dream” after King and Tennessee also-ex-prodigy Sierra Hull undressed a Donnie Darko-haunted cover of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World.” Jazz fiend Kurt Rosenwinkel picked “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World” the next afternoon.
The first day went down in a blaze of glory with three titanic sets in a row. Jimmie Vaughan guested Clapton and a show-stealing Buddy Guy, 90 years grinning. Then Billy Gibbons trio’d up with SRV drummer Chris Layton and local music polymath Mike Flanigin for a half-dozen OG ZZ Top tunes that sounded as raw as 1974, starting with first LP single “Brown Sugar.” Finally, Tesdeschi & Trucks headlined in full-on Derek & the Dominos mode.
Warming up on George Harrison’s “Wah-Wah” with Trey Anastasio, then “Little Wing” with the latter trading liquid steel with Other Ones bandmate John Mayer, the now-divorced tandem of Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks alchemized their patented Southern onslaught before Mssrs. Bramhall & Clapton came out after Dominos’ scorcher “Keep on Growing.” Three in a row from the Dominos, including a pair from Clapton’s best album – 1970’s Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs – burned next: “Anyday,” “Got to Get Better in a Little While,” and even “Layla.”
Sunday morning coming down – well, 4pm, anyway – moved slowly, thankfully. For a second day, the B-stage destroyed: jazzer Julian Lage, Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ , and Vaughan solo on Pavlovian salivators “Strange Pleasure” and a “Six Strings Down” dedicated to the other voodoo chile present in the eves, little brother Stevie Ray Vaughan. Even so, Tommy Emmanuel won the weekend by beating out of his acoustic the entire Beatles catalog in six minutes.
Main sets belonged to criminally shorted bluegrass royalty Del McCoury with birthday girl Hull and dobro GOAT Jerry Douglas, followed by sacred slide archbishop Robert Randolph guesting Gales. Marcus King’s set put its Marshall Tucker Band pedal to the metal by closing with the South Carolina shredder trading hammer of the gods riffs with Bonamassa on Led Zeppelin’s “How Many More Times.” Then Anastasio and Mayer happened.
It took at least two guitarists to replace Jerry Garcia in the surviving remnants of the Grateful Dead, so Anastasio and Mayer demonstrated prior to Gary Clark Jr. the alchemy they create when facing off on their instruments. The heavens open when they harmonize, where guitars become divining rods and audiences ride the lightning. Test radiation levels in local waters after that.
That left Clark and Clapton, the closer coming out behind backing from Valhalla: Bramhall, keyboardists Tim Carmon and Chris Stainton, and especially Hephaestus-esque drummer Sonny Emory. This group then launched Clapton/Harrison Cream co-write “Badge.” Remember now, that the former coveted the latter’s wife, so Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs raged with unrequited heartbreak and heroin.
Lifetimes and civilizations later, what remains is our collective worship at the Church of God.
That devilishly debonair gentleman upstairs continues playing musical luminescence at 81 with frailing hands and short white socks. “Key to the Highway” and “Hoochie Coochie Man” rumbled next, but couldn’t match the ensuing acoustic set flashing back HARD to Clapton bestseller Unplugged, summoning up “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” “Running on Faith,” “Layla,” and “Tears in Heaven.” Wrung out, some of us barely made it through the fully plugged end run and jam: “Crossroads,” “Stormy Monday Blues,” “Cocaine,” and mercifully modest final free-for-all “Going Down.”
If Austin needs another annual trip to Mecca, one between ACL Festival and Levitation, please let it be Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival.
