On March 22nd, Eric Clapton
announced the
2007 Crossroads Guitar Festival.
On March 31st (at 10 a.m.), tickets went on sale.
On March 31st (at 10:08 a.m.), the show was sold out.
Suffice it to say that Clapton's festival is pretty popular, and the 2007 installment (the second Crossroads festival overall) is looking promising. The event is scheduled for
Toyota Park in
Chicago, where 28,000 lucky ticket holders will enjoy performances from a roster of ax-slingers on
July 28th. The current list includes Jeff Beck, Sheryl Crow, Vince Gill, Buddy Guy, BB King, Los Lobos, John Mayer, Robert Randolph, Derek Trucks, Steve Winwood, and Alison Krauss and Union Station.
Tickets are hard to come by at this point, but don't think about selling your soul to the devil just yet.
eBay has a few pricey auctions to check out, and ads have been popping up on Craigslist in various cities. You can also go to
RazorGator.com and shell out as much as $800 for a pass, but selling your soul might be the better option at that point.
Proceeds from the all-day event will go toward the
Crossroads Centre, a drug treatment facility (or, as the website states, "An International Centre of Excellence for the treatment of alcohol, drugs and other addictive disorders") that Clapton helped found in 1998. The guitarist has been very vocal about his increased output since leaving drinks and drugs behind, and recently told the Associated Press that the need for such an operation is especially strong right now. "I think it's suffered a little bit in some of the recent publicity with the celebrities who go there," Clapton stated. "It's a bit of a witch hunt going on in some of the news channels about rehabs in general. It's a little scary because... the last thing we want is to lose any of the rehabs."
