With apologies for the delay in reporting, caused by a combination of jet-lag and party hangover, the WE! team presents its potted summary of the Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas. To put it in simple terms, this was an awesome event of huge magnitude and importance.
On the Friday, music lovers were able to wander freely around the vintage guitar exhibition, set up in an aircraft hanger size building, trawl around the manufacturers' stalls in an adjacent hanger, play on all manner of equipment, attend guitar clinics, view a selection of the best Christie's EC auction guitars and collect a wide array of promotional swag. Eric made an early appearance at the festival, mingling with the crowd for the Honey Boy Edwards, Robert Lockwood Jr, Duke Robillard blues jam on a small inside stage.
Eric was very high profile throughout the Saturday. Having sound-checked at lunch time on a few Robert Johnson songs plus Badge (a stadium song if ever there was one), in the huge Cotton Bowl stadium as the temperatures soared, he then watched from the side of the main Fair Park stage the sets of Eric Johnson, Dan Tyminski and Doyle Bramhall II before getting up and joining JJ Cale for his entire set - After Midnight, Cocaine, Call me the Breeze, Travellin Light, you got them all and more. He then joined the all star blues jam of Jimmie Vaughan, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, Robert Randolph and Hubert Sumlin to send folks home with big grins on their faces.
On Sunday in the Cotton Bowl it was hero after hero as Neil Schon, Sonny Landreth, Larry Carlton, Pat Metheney, Robert Cray, Booker T and the MGs, Joe Walsh....need we carry on, blew the 40,000 crowd away. Eric came on for a loose jam with BB King, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan and John Mayer, jammed on Jingo with Santana, Cause We Ended As Lovers with Jeff Beck (oh joy, oh bliss) raised the roof (sic) with his own abridged set of rock and blues classics, wisely retaining the services of his red hot European touring band, before ZZ Top topped and tailed the evening before local storms blew in.
A full, detailed report, including a 4 page full colour spread will feature in the next issue of Where?s Eric!
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