Concert review: A rock reunion at tentative crossroads

Hey, baby boomers, have you ever fantasized about playing in a tennis tourney with your old high-school doubles partner, doing community theater with the classmate with whom you shared a scene in your high school musical, or reconnecting with that special someone you met that summer of college when you traveled in Europe?

Forty years after they made a 42-minute album together, Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Eric Clapton, 64, and Steve Winwood, 61, have teamed up again for a 14-show U.S. tour. Their 130-minute reunion concert Thursday night at Xcel Energy Center was nostalgic fun, with some magical moments, but not enough to live up to the fantasies of the two musicians or the 14,000 fans.

After Clapton's Cream and Winwood's Traffic disbanded, they hooked up in 1969 with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Ric Grech in a supergroup called Blind Faith. The band lasted for one album and a seven-week North American tour and broke up after less than a year together. Clapton went on to form Derek & the Dominos, Winwood rejoined Traffic, and both eventually moved on to successful solo careers.

Last year, the two old friends from England reunited for three shows at New York's Madison Square Garden, which were captured on a CD and DVD released this spring. Like those shows, Thursday's 21-song concert featured Blind Faith material, Traffic tunes, some blues, a few Clapton solo numbers and a cover of a Jimi Hendrix classic.

What the concert did not feature was the freshness and fire of those Madison Square Garden performances. Even though the band was pushed by a different and more booming drummer (Abe Laboriel Jr.), Clapton and Winwood did not seem to be igniting each other. It was embarrassing to have Winwood try to play guitar standing next to one of rock's all-time great guitarists. Keyboardist Winwood, a journeyman at best on guitar, is no Derek Trucks, the young stud who sparked Clapton on his 2006 tour. Hearing Winwood and Clapton jam on acoustic guitars on "Can't Find My Way Home," Blind Faith's lone hit, sounded more like Fleetwood Mac than heavy blues-rock, and "Crossroads" has never sounded as tentative as it did Thursday. The master has always seemed more inspired by a disciple such as Trucks or Robert Randolph than by one of his contemporaries.

Winwood's best work Thursday was either on keyboard (an organ-propelled instrumental "Glad" by Traffic) or when his organ and Clapton's guitar did a call-and-response on Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile" (Winwood played on Hendrix's original recording). But, let's be honest, most of the crowd came to experience Clapton.

He was wonderful on a cookin' "After Midnight" and "Tough Luck Blues," on which he was so fired up that he was dancing on one leg as he ripped off a fast and heartfelt solo. There were moments that were almost god-like on "Driftin'" and "How Long" as he finger-picked on acoustic guitar.

But there were also passages of boredom such as the lamest "Layla" you've ever heard. (Winwood's solo organ reading of "Georgia on My Mind" and the ballad "No Face, No Name, No Number" were low points, too; he did not do "Higher Love," "While You See a Chance" or any of his solo hits, and Clapton eschewed his softer classics "Tears in Heaven" and "Wonderful Tonight.")

In the end, Clapton switched back to his electric guitar for a trip to baby-boomer heaven with the long-winded "Voodoo Chile" (during which his mouth dropped open on one stunning solo), the inevitable crowd-thrilling "Cocaine" and Traffic's "Dear Mr. Fantasy," a fitting finale for a night of fantasy.

For a set list, go to www.startribune.com/poplife. Jon Bream • 612-673-1719