When Eric Clapton brings his Crossroads Guitar Festival back to Austin, Texas, this fall, he’ll be joined by a guitarist who played a pivotal role in one of the most important turning points of his life.
For the first time, Pete Townshend will appear at the festival, scheduled for September 26 and 27 at the Moody Center. The event marks the seventh edition of Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival and coincides with the 28th anniversary of the Crossroads Centre Antigua, the addiction recovery facility Clapton founded in 1998.
Townshend’s appearance comes full circle. More than 50 years ago, the guitarist helped stage the comeback that pulled Clapton out of one of the darkest periods of his life.
The two men go back to the early days of the British rock scene. Townshend remembered first seeing Clapton in Richmond, southwest London, in 1963, before either guitarist had achieved widespread fame.
“Eric Clapton was a myth in Richmond where we played, even in 1963,” Townshend recalled. “I remember seeing him at a bus stop looking very, very posy, I thought.”
If Clapton already carried an aura, it only grew over the next few years through his work on electric guitar with the Yardbirds, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and later Cream. But by the early 1970s his career had stalled. Following the breakup of Derek and the Dominos, Clapton had retreated from public life amid a severe heroin addiction.
He released no new albums and made only one high-profile appearance: performing at the Concert for Bangladesh, organized by George Harrison in August 1971.
Townshend decided to intervene. Rather than stage an intervention, he devised something far more dramatic: a pair of all-star comeback concerts at London’s Rainbow Theatre on January 13, 1973.
We really missed him. And there’s this feeling that it was a genuine waste of talent.”
— Pete Townshend
Now remembered as Eric Clapton's Rainbow Concert, the shows featured an ensemble of Clapton’s friends and collaborators. Townshend himself joined on guitar alongside Ronnie Wood, while Clapton’s former Blind Faith bandmate Steve Winwood played keyboards. The band was rounded out by former Blind Faith bassist Ric Grech and Traffic drummer Jim Capaldi.
“Pete actually dug me out of the hole that I was getting deeper into,” Clapton said in a 1989 interview with Sue Lawley. “I think he was instrumental in getting me to look up life as a proposition again, because I had gone into a real hermit-like existence.”
Without Clapton’s full awareness, Townshend assembled the musicians and coordinated the event to force his friend back onto the stage.
“Pete organized all my old mates — musicians — to put on a concert specifically to get me out of it,” Clapton said. “To get me back on my feet again.”
Townshend later recalled the motivation more bluntly.
“We really missed him,” he said. “And there’s this feeling that it was a genuine waste of talent.”
Convincing Clapton to take part was no easy task. When Townshend first approached him shortly before Christmas 1972, Clapton had little interest in returning to the stage. Rather than wait for him to change his mind, Townshend simply pushed ahead.
I had to prop him up and teach him how to play again. The guy had shut himself away for the better part of two years.”
— Pete Townshend
“Me and the father of the girl Eric was living with at the time organized this concert and bullied him into doing it,” Townshend told the New Musical Express on the eve of the show. “He didn’t want to do it.”
Getting him performance-ready proved another challenge.
“I had to prop him up and teach him how to play again,” Townshend later recalled. “The guy had shut himself away for the better part of two years.”
On the night of the show, Clapton appeared onstage with a heavy beard and a white suit, letting Townshend handle much of the talking between songs. But once the music began, Clapton quickly reclaimed the spotlight with his playing. The shows marked the first time he played Blackie, his now-iconic Fender Stratocaster.
The set functioned as a sweeping tour of his career, touching on material from Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominos and his solo work. Among the songs performed were “Crossroads,” “Badge,” “Layla,” “Bell Bottom Blues,” “Blues Power,” “Let It Rain” and the J.J. Cale cover “After Midnight.”
The Rainbow Concert proved to be a turning point. Within a year Clapton had overcome his heroin addiction and returned to recording, releasing 461 Ocean Boulevard in 1974. The album — featuring his hit cover of “I Shot the Sheriff” — became one of the most successful of his career.
Pete was the only friend who had refused to take no for an answer.”
— Eric Clapton
More importantly, the experience planted a seed that would eventually shape Clapton’s life beyond music.
After achieving lasting sobriety in 1987, he founded the Crossroads Centre Antigua in 1998 to help others struggling with addiction, a mission that later inspired the creation of the Crossroads Guitar Festival itself.
Looking back years later, Clapton admitted the Rainbow performance itself was far from perfect.
“I had a good time doing it,” he wrote in Clapton: The Autobiography. “It was when I listened to the tapes afterwards that I realized that it was well under par. Everyone made mistakes.
“But Pete was the only friend who had refused to take no for an answer.”
