BLIND FAITH DVD

[doug]

Blind Faith DVD

Well All Right

Sea Of Joy

Sleeping In The Ground

Under My Thumb

Can't Find My Way Home

Do What You Like

Presence Of The Lord

Means To An End

Had To Cry Today

Short-lived supergroup Blind Faith's live debut will be chronicled on the DVD "London Hyde Park 1969," due April 10 in Europe and the following month in North America via Sanctuary. The DVD features renditions of all six tracks from the group's lone self-titled studio album, which had not even been released at the time of the show.

"Beautiful summer afternoon, loads of people -- well over 100,000," drummer Ginger Baker recalls to Billboard.com. "Happy, relaxed, laid back gig -- not loud on stage. Just pleasant volume unlike [the] preceding band I played with."

Blind Faith rose out of the ashes of Cream, when Baker and Eric Clapton united with ex-Spencer Davis and Traffic singer/keyboardist Steve Winwood plus Family bassist Rick Grech. Although Clapton's main inspiration for forming the group was to move away from Cream's endless live soloing, "London Hyde Park 1969" has its fair share of jamming, including the drum solo showcase "Do What You Like."

Also featured are covers of the Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb," Traffic's "Means to an End" and the blues standard "Sleeping in the Ground." Vintage performances from Spencer Davis Group, Traffic and Cream round out the package.

The majority of the tracks still hold up well for Baker after all these years. "My favorite tracks are 'Sea of Joy', 'Can't Find My Way Home,' 'Presence of the Lord' and 'Had to Cry Today' -- all four are classics," Baker says. "If Blind Faith had not been such a brief thing, would probably all have been released as singles. Great shame."

After their live debut at Hyde Park, Blind Faith soldiered on for a U.S. tour of arenas, which was met with riots and clashes between fans and police on several occasions. The group quietly disbanded afterwards, with its members going on to other projects.

Despite the release of DVD, Baker rules out any chance of a Blind Faith reunion. "Rick Grech died many years ago [in 1990]," he notes. "I just come out of retirement for short periods. I'm pretty much crippled with arthritis -- playing is a very painful experience for me."

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[Jay Funk Dawg]

this looks wikked.. can't wait to see this!

[Esau]

I have a Blind Faith compilation disc called Hyde & Seek which contains part of the Hyde Park show from june 7 1969. Smokin stuff. I'm looking forward to being able to see the rest of that show.

Thanks for the heads up Doug.

[zero]

I love Blind Faith - can't find my way home is a scorcher - Winwood just has such a beautiful voice. I always found that Jimi Hendrix story funny about how he always wanted to work with him and asked Buddy Miles whether he thought Steve would do that - Buddy sort of shook his head and said 'yeah man I'm pretty sure he would'.

[bradm]

can't find my way home is a scorcher

Don Ross does a really nice version of it (with vocals and a backing band) on his "Loaded. Leather. Moonroof." album.

Aloha,

Brad