DVD Review: Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival

Live at the Cotton Bowl, Dallas, 2004

Dec 20, 2008

This DVD is an extensive look at guitarist Eric Clapton's 1st Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas, 2004, featuring superb performances by more than 20 guitar greats.

For fans of Eric Clapton and/or the instrument he helped popularize, or just fans of great music, the DVD Eric Clapton: Crossroads Guitar Festival is essential viewing. Essential, multiple viewing and listening, that is.

Festival Benefits Clapton's Crossroads Antigua Treatment Centre

Clapton staged his first Crossroads Guitar Festival in 2004 at Dallas' Cotton Bowl to benefit his Crossroads Antigua Centre. The legendary blues/rock guitarist for Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominoes (as well as his 30-plus year solo career) says he started the event so his friends and contemporaries could have fun and play together for a good cause.

Among those friends: J.J. Cale, Robert Cray, Doyle Bramhall lll, Carlos Santana, John Mayer, Joe Walsh, Buddy Guy, David Hidalgo and B.B. King. It's not hard to see why the event comes off as a sort of awe-fest. Clapton said that the performers "are all musicians I admire and respect." In one of the candid interviews included, J.J. Cale says "I come here to listen to all these great guitar players and steal some licks."

The Crossroads Guitar Festival lands somewhere between a guitar seminar and an all-star concert. Included are small-stage performances and blockbuster jams nicely interspersed on the DVD with appropriate commentary by some of the performers. There is also a loose, casualness to it, which --at least on the edited film-- gives it an intimate feel.

Superb Performances Abound

As one might expect from this rich and varied lineup, Crossroads Guitar Festival DVD abounds with superb performances. Santana and Clapton trading off solos on the former's "Jingo" is as infused with energy as J.J. Cale's performance of his own "After Midnight" is tastily laid back.

With 38 "listed" performances (also extras and hidden extras), there's a little something for everybody on this 2-disk set. A cross-section of tracks:

2 Disk Set Contains Extras, Hidden Track, Interviews

Besides over 4 hours of live performances, the Eric Clapton: Crossroads Guitar Festival DVD includes some extras: interviews with most of the performers on a variety of musical topics, and the ability to click directly to each of the best guitar solos performed. One hidden extra is the track "Layla" (accessed on disk two "extras" by left clicking to "un-highlight" and pressing "return"), which appears to be the finale of the event.

The music is all on this DVD, and the quality of the performances cannot be overstated. As Carlos Santana muses in the midst of the festival, "This music is all about the spiritual and the essential...spiritual and essential will never go out of style on this planet."

The copyright of the article DVD Review: Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival in Rock Music is owned by Dale Van Every. Permission to republish DVD Review: Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.