Eric Clapton plays private New Year's gig

Eric Clapton was joined on New Year's Eve (December 31st) by Pete Townshend, Ringo Starr, and Joe Walsh for his annual private performance outside of London for recovering alcoholics. Townshend's girlfriend Rachel Fuller tipped fans off to the invite-only show on her blog intheattic.tv only hours before she and Townshend left for the gig.

Clapton has been playing the private show for dry revelers for the past several years, and this year in addition to Townshend, Starr, and Walsh, he was also joined by longtime sideman Andy Fairweather-Low and Procol Harum's Gary Brooker. The band performed a full three-hour concert in which the players were billed as the Totally Abandoned Band.

Clapton, Townshend, Starr and Walsh are all recovering alcoholics and substance abusers.

Details are still sketchy on the other musicians and complete setlist, but fan reports state that tickets for the unadvertised show cost less than $100 and that the band performed "Hoochie Coochie Man," "Cocaine," and "Midnight Hour," and Starr took the lead on "Boys" and Townshend performed the standards "Goodnight Irene" and "Three Steps To Heaven."
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