Blind Faith – in concert at Hyde Park – June 7, 1969.
Blind Faith were considered by many at the time to be the world’s first Supergroup – it would be a term used to distraction over the years ever since. It was also the world’s shortest lived Supergroup; last some six months from start to finish.
Speculation ran rife over the cause. It looked good on paper. Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker were formerly part of Cream. Stevie Winwood, formerly with Traffic and before that, The Spencer Davis Group. The only one that the audience (at least the American audience) wasn’t familiar with was Rick Gretch. He was formerly a member of Family; a band well known in the UK and Europe but just barely getting a reputation in the U.S. based on their debut album, “Music In A Dolls House”.
Right from the start there were expectations being bandied about, primarily from Robert Stigwood who managed Cream and was eager to duplicate his successful formula with Blind Faith – the idea of a Supergroup held enormous appeal, but not so much with Eric Clapton who felt the expectations and the desire to repeat a formula Clapton was trying to get away from was harming rather than helping things.
This concert, the first one for the newly established group caught them largely unprepared. With an audience of some 100,000 – Blind Faith didn’t have enough new material to sustain a complete concert, so they had to fall back on older Cream and Traffic numbers to flesh out the set. The audience was delighted but the band were less so and it frustrated Clapton, who was starting to doubt why he did this in the first place.
In the end, they completed the six month tour of Europe and packed it in. Clapton was looking forward to a closer working relationship with Delaney and Bonnie and Steve Winwood was ready to get back with Traffic from what appeared to be a hiatus of sorts.
A few recordings of other concerts from this tour have surfaced, but aside from the one recorded in Amsterdam, the vast majority are either incomplete or audience recordings (i.e. a tiny mike placed several hundred feet away, usually in a row overflowing with consumptives), so this recording by the BBC is an especially welcome one, if for nothing else but the historic value of a group together for short time who still managed to make great music.
From the 7th of June in 1969, here are Blind Faith as they were heard during the free concert in Hyde Park and recorded by The BBC.
Enjoy the Turkey leftovers.
