Eric Clapton’s Live Aid Marshall JCM800 amp is up for auction
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The original 1984 Marshall JCM800 amp that Eric Clapton used for his Live Aid 1985 performance has been put up for sale.
The blues guitar legend paired the guitar amp with his “Blackie” Fender Stratocaster for a three-song set. Playing in front of nearly 100,000 people at Philadelphia’s John F. Kennedy Stadium, he was joined by Genesis drummer, Phil Collins.
The set was even more special because Collins had performed at the English edition of Live Aid, at Wembley Stadium, earlier that day. He took a helicopter to Heathrow, a Concorde flight to New York, and then another helicopter to Philadelphia to play Clapton’s set, which included Layla, White Room and She’s Waiting.
The 1984 JCM800 head and matching 4x12 cab are being sold by London’s Denmark Street Guitars. Clapton reportedly owned the amp from 1985 up until 2011.
They're believed to have been part of a consignment of JCM800s that were auctioned off in 2011 as part of a charity fundraiser for Clapton's Antigua-based addiction recovery center, Crossroads (per MusicRadar). Now, tone chasers have a second opportunity to own this historic amp.
Live Aid 1985, simultaneously held at London’s Wembley Stadium and Philidelphia’s John F. Kennedy Stadium, has become a pop culture phenomenon. It was watched by an estimated TV audience of 1.5 billion people, with Queen’s legendary performance just one of the event’s near-countless standout moments.
According to the amp's listing page, it was also used during the 2001 Band du Lac show, and Cream's 2005 reunion at the Royal Albert Hall.
The Live Aid show took place during a transitional tonal time for Clapton. Having temporarily switched to Music Man amps, Slowhand had started to move back to Marshalls and owned several JCM800s during this time.
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Talking to Guitar World back in 2008, Clapton underlined his love for an amp that kept things simple.
“I don’t like too many options in an amplifier,” he said. “If I want it to distort, I’ll just turn it up full volume, and it will do that. But when you’ve got all these permutations, you just spend too long fiddling around on the knobs.”
Anyone interested in purchasing Clapton's JCM800 can check out the listing page, or email their inquiries to justin@londonvintageguitars.com.
