Dear Mr. Fantasy, bring back our youth

By RON BROCHU

Thermometers redlined as Clapton fans flooded the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds on a sweltering 1973 Saturday afternoon. We arrived two hours late, despite a numbing southward blast down Highway 61. Fortunately, the concert was running hours late; tickets to enter the expansive outdoor field still remained available even to those who frantically fumbled with Quad Cities maps in search of the hallowed stadium.

The gruesome Davenport trip had been hastily planned after hearing a promo on Beaker Street, the famous alternative rock show broadcast nightly on clear channel KAAY. Our ride, a ’66 Mustang, wasn’t fitted to roar down the sleepy Mississippi. The pony wasn’t equipped with air conditioning, moon roof, reclining seats or tilt wheel – just a lean 289 that screamed like a ferret on speedballs. It was the quick, unrefined ticket for young Americans who wanted cheap thrills without buffed cowhide, chilled cup holders and wrap-around safety bubbles.

The aging beast had seen its best days but still offered enough juice for a couple teen freaks aimlessly searching for the American dream. In fact, guilt pangs emerged when we parked her in a farm field way outside the concert grounds, carefully avoiding lumps of hay that might ignite under sizzling header mufflers. Yet the desire to secure Clapton tickets trumped all else as we rushed the gate in ripped jeans and surplus Army shirts. The $9 cost seemed expensive, but British legends didn’t often pass through the bloody Midwest.

When tickets eventually sold out, the mood turned ugly. Angry kids climbed the fence and were met by paid guests swinging broken fifths of Annie Green Springs and Mad Dog 20/20. Such was the talk -- perhaps true, perhaps false – that quickly spread through the crowd, which was packed shoulder-to-shoulder in this far-away field.

Musically, it was a strange time. Paul McCartney had just formed Wings, and Clapton’s latest release was 461 Ocean Boulevard. Rock was morphing into pop, and pot-heads disliked it almost as much as disco.

When Clapton finally took the stage, he was accompanied by Yvonne Elliman – a far cry from earlier legends including Jack Bruce, Duane Allman and Steve Winwood. Preferably, he would have performed hits from the Cream era, but he disappointed the gaggle of stoners. Yet the concert was unforgettable, if only because it featured Slowhand.


Old geeks and wrinkle freaks

Those dusty memories surfaced last week before Clapton and Winwood took stage in St. Paul. It wasn’t dubbed a reunion concert, but the pair previously collaborated as Blind Faith, an unforgettable one-album supergroup that also included Cream drummer Ginger Baker and talented bassist Rick Grech.

Unlike the Davenport gig, where the outdoor venue overflowed with life, Xcel Center had a country club aura, with overstuffed, hair-challenged throwbacks carefully navigating steep stairways in their $50 polos and $80 chinos.

The pairing of Clapton and Winwood proved exciting, but didn’t thrust 50- and 60-somethings into mosh pits. Quoting Winwood’s Rock and Roll Stew, youth and zeal were “Gone, Gone, Gone.” Like the aging performers, we had become senior citizens or, in hippy lingo, wrinkle freaks.

The dream is dead

During their interpretation of Voodoo Chile, the British pair clearly demonstrated the difference between true musicians and Top 10 artists, although some fans didn’t seem to connect with the underground Hendrix piece. It presents more raw emotion than typically flows from the speakers of their Infinity and Lexus SUVs.
The concert was fabulous, exceeding expectations, but the spectacle of 10,000 aging rockers feebly trying to be hip was, quoting a Cream hit, quite the Bring Down. It demonstrated that the entire rock generation lost its direction and sold out to the highest bidder.

Music that one promted an generation to seek a higher plane became simply entertainment. Clapton and Winwood are alive and well, but the child is gone; the dream is dead.

This story was first published in the June 26 Reader Weekly.