The Archive.
View at 800 x600 min res
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The Archive. View at 800 x600 min res |
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For information on today's festivals see eFestivals.co.uk |
Last update Feb 2007.
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31st July 1966. Royal Windsor Racecourse. |
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festival was notable for the scheduling of this very early second gig by
this most esteemed of power trios . Apparently they played for 40 minutes and were well received, in fact Q magazine readers voted this as one of the 100 best UK gigs of the century. At present we have no exact details of their set but at the time they were playing
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Its doubtful if this show was recorded as I've never seen it featured
on anyone's lists , but that does not mean it isn't out there somewhere
. Its entirely possible that the band themselves may have recorded early
shows to hear what they sounded like on stage .Sound men were also liable
to record from the board too without asking the band. Recently a few soundboards
of early Cream shows have surfaced . There may be more out there in
someone's collection or mouldering in a vault .
Anyone doing \an audience recording would likely to have been drenched as apparently it chucked it down on the hapless punters, who were so wrapt in the performance that they more or less ignored the downpour and just grokked on the trio's insrtumental prowess. There is a reasonably detailed account of the set by Chris Welch in his book on Cream which is probably available at your local bookstore. Its a bit sparse on detail but it does capture the atmosphere of the event to some extent . Dik Leatherdale remembers I was also at Windsor in 1966 (we were told it was Cream's first show, but it seems it wasn't - your speculative play list is about right, but I don't remember "Lawdy Momma" until much later and I don't think Toad was in, but then it's 35 years ago now) it was only a short set with the sainted Gee announcing "there are no more numbers" at the end of it. I think I remember Pentangle playing (Bert Janch was almost completely out of it and still playing) but you have them down for 1967, so I wouldn't claim to be certain. |
Austin Reeves remembers
Yes, it did pee down on the Saturday night at the '66 when Cream were about to play. I remember walking down toward the stage following Eric Clapton who was being escorted by a gorgeous blonde carrying a multicoloured golf umbrella.As it was raining , a lot of people didn't come out of hiding for quite a while, so we had very little competition for viewing sites.It was certainly a very memorable set and ,although I saw Cream many times after that , this one was special!
To make this site work we need more information, you have photos, recollections, set lists, newspaper reports or tapes of the event then Contact us and we will add them to the site.
The early festivals.
You can find out the complete
line ups of the first festivals if you follow the links below.
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Festivals 65-83
Most of these have fairly complete documentation .
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