Friday, December 9, 2022

Blind Faith - Hyde Park, London, Britain, 6-7-1969

Blind Faith was a short-lived "supergroup." Guitarist Eric Clapton stuck with drummer Ginger Baker from their previous band Cream, and joined with singer and keyboardist Steve Winwood from Traffic and Ric Grech from Family. They only lasted long enough for one album, 1969's "Blind Faith," and a short tour. 

When it comes to live recordings, unfortunately, there isn't that much. In my opinion, this is the only bootleg concert recording I've heard with really good sound quality. There are said to be one or two other soundboard bootlegs, but they don't sound nearly as good. This was the band's very first concert, performed for free in front of an audience of about 100,000 people. It was professionally recorded and filmed, which is why is sounds so much better than their other bootlegs.

The downside is that, even though the audience reaction was very good, the band felt their performance was subpar. Apparently, Clapton complained about it in an autobiography he wrote many years later. It's true that they probably weren't at their best, due to the fact that they hadn't had enough practice to fully jell yet. For instance, you can hear Winwood failing to hit or hold notes sometimes. But I'd rather hear this than a better performed show with poor sound quality. These guys were still excellent musicians who ran circles around most everyone else even on their bad days.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Clapton thought the jamming in Cream had grown excessive, so he was against long solos in Blind Faith. You can see that here, with the longest song being seven minutes. With Cream, their songs sometimes went to 20 minutes or thereabouts. Probably as a result of that attitude, and a lack of new material, the concert is relatively short. They did all the songs from their sole album, and a few covers, but they didn't want to rely on lots of their Cream and Traffic songs. The only one done here is Traffic's "Means to an End."

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 talk (Blind Faith)
02 Well... All Right (Blind Faith)
03 Sea of Joy (Blind Faith)
04 talk (Blind Faith)
05 Sleeping in the Ground (Blind Faith)
06 Under My Thumb (Blind Faith)
07 talk (Blind Faith)
08 Can't Find My Way Home (Blind Faith)
09 Do What You Like (Blind Faith)
10 Presence of the Lord (Blind Faith)
11 talk (Blind Faith)
12 Means to an End (Blind Faith)
13 Had to Cry Today (Blind Faith)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15902047/BlindF_1969_HydParkLondonBritain__6-7-1969_atse.zip.html

The cover comes from this exact concert. By the way, note the lens of a film camera on the far left. You can watch a video of the whole concert shot by those cameras on YouTube.

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