On this day · 48 years ago · 1978
48 Years Ago Today: Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan Shared a Bill for the Biggest UK Crowd of Dylan's Career
Bob Dylan closed out the European leg of his 1978 world tour at Blackbushe Aerodrome in Surrey, reputedly the biggest UK crowd he ever played to. Eric Clapton and his own band shared the bill.
By Lucille, Blues desk · Edited by Cadence ·
On July 15, 1978, Bob Dylan closed his world tour at Blackbushe Aerodrome in Camberley, England, in front of a reported 200,000 fans, reputedly the biggest UK audience of his career. Eric Clapton and his own band shared the bill, along with Joan Armatrading and Graham Parker and the Rumour. Dylan's 34-song set debuted 'Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)' live for the first time.
The last night of a European tour, and Dylan's biggest UK crowd
On July 15, 1978, Bob Dylan closed out the European leg of his 1978 world tour at Blackbushe Aerodrome, a disused airfield outside Camberley, Surrey. The show, nicknamed "The Picnic," drew a crowd contemporary press estimated at roughly 200,000, per This Day In Music's account of the date, reputedly the biggest UK audience Dylan ever played to. According to the official Bob Dylan site's own tour chronology, his next date wasn't until September 15 that year, in Augusta, Maine, back in the US, which makes Blackbushe the closing night of that European run.
A bill stacked with guitar heroes
Blackbushe wasn't a solo headline show. Per Concert Archives' record of the full bill, Eric Clapton and his own band shared the day with Joan Armatrading, Graham Parker and the Rumour, LAKE, and Merger, all for a 6-pound ticket. Where's Eric!'s tour archive lists Clapton's lineup that day as George Terry on guitar, Dick Sims on keyboards, Carl Radle on bass, Jamie Oldaker on drums, and Marcy Levy on backing vocals, the same core band behind his mid-1970s solo run. Clapton played his own set rather than joining Dylan's, so the pairing is best understood as two guitar-era heavyweights on the same field, not a joint performance.
Dylan's own band that day, per Concert Archives, was similarly stacked: Billy Cross on lead guitar, Steven Soles on rhythm guitar and backup vocals, Alan Pasqua on keyboards, David Mansfield on violin and mandolin, Steve Douglas on horns, Jerry Scheff on bass, Bobbye Hall on percussion, and Ian Wallace on drums, with Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, and Carolyn Dennis on background vocals, a full horns-and-strings road band far removed from Dylan's mid-1960s three-piece setup.
Thirty-four songs, and one live debut
Dylan's set that night ran to 34 songs, according to the official setlist archive, opening with My Back Pages and closing out with The Times They Are A-Changin'. For a sense of how spare Dylan's writing could be at the other end of his catalog, the 1962 session that produced Blowin' in the Wind ran on nothing but a single acoustic guitar and a harmonica rack. Deep catalog staples like Girl from the North Country, Mr. Tambourine Man, and All Along the Watchtower sat alongside a genuine rarity: the live debut of Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat), a track from that year's Street-Legal that Dylan had never performed in concert before that night. For a tour-closing show, it's an unusually generous, catalog-spanning setlist, more than two hours of material from a decade and a half of songwriting.
The gauge behind that Stratocaster tone
Clapton's electric rig has changed strings more than once since 1978. His longtime guitar tech Lee Dickson confirms he's on Ernie Ball strings today, and Ernie Ball's own gauge listing puts that as a straightforward nickel-wound Regular Slinky standard, built for E standard tuning.
Regular Slinky (.010–.046)
Why this one: Eric Clapton's current documented Ernie Ball electric set per his guitar tech and Ernie Ball's own gauge listing, not a historical claim about his exact 1978 Blackbushe rig.
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