The seventh edition of Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival blazed into life over the weekend, with one of its strongest line-ups bringing firepower galore.
First conceived in 1999, it's been an opportunity for Clapton to celebrate the players he loves, all while raising funds for his Crossroads addiction recovery facility.
This year, the festival marks the 28th anniversary of the center in Antigua, and though Pete Townshend was forced to pull out of proceedings, there was plenty of talent on the lineup.
Yet for all the bill’s six-string slingers, it was actor Bill Murray who got the party started, performing Robert Johnson's Cross Road Blues.
Later on, a powerful holy trinity of blues guitar in Clapton, the evergreen Buddy Guy, and Jimmie Vaughan shared the stage for a triple Strat attack. Clapton’s tone here was particularly glassy, but he and Vaughan are shushed by Guy at one point. He’s probably the only man on the planet who could get away with it.
Elsewhere during the weekend, John Mayer made his PRS Silver Sky, now redecorated like a Land Rover Defender, sing with the Tedeschi Trucks Band. Watching Mayer and Trucks trade licks was a standout moment of the festival.
The Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi-powered band also invited Trey Anastasio – who traded off phenomenally with Mayer, it should be said – Doyle Bramhall II, and, of course, Eric Clapton, up for jams. It made for one of the most action-packed sets of the weekend.
But it wasn’t just the established guard bringing their A game, as Gibson artist Marcus King and bluegrass picker Sierra Hull joined forces for the first time in their careers, playing King's slinky and smoky cut, Falling for the Devil., amongst others.
After that, King tapped up Joe Bonamassa for a surprising-but-exceptional cover Led Zeppelin's How Many More Times. He also brought Trucks and Tedeschi out for his set closer, a cover of Blind Faith's Had to Cry Today.
“I like to use the festival platform as a way of getting [musicians] to come and play to a big audience, maybe for the first time,” Clapton said of the festival in 2019. “I think it's quite nice for the other musicians to meet them, too. I like cross-fertilization. I mean, that was a fascinating thing for me, the fantasy. And it worked.”
The festival was also the first time fans could get their hands on Epiphone's new Eric Clapton ES-335 signature, after Guitar Center launched a slew of Crossroads models earlier this year.
