ERIC CLAPTON AND JEFF BECK TO TEAM UP FOR JAPAN DATES

Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck will team up for a pair of gigs at the Super Arena in Saitama, Japan on February 21st and 22nd, according to Rolling Stone. Similar to Clapton's brief run with Steve Winwood at New York's Madison Square Garden last February, the team-up is being limited to only two shows, with no word on a possible tour for the two bluesman. Both guitarists will forever be linked together through their early association with the Yardbirds, with Beck having replaced Clapton, who left the group in 1965 to join John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and eventually Cream.

Jeff Beck has worked with numerous music legends throughout his career, but unlike the other Yardbirds guitarists -- Clapton and Jimmy Page -- he never found the right combination of bandmates to spur him into wider popularity. He says that he doesn't mind being thought of as a music snob for having very specific tastes: "People will tend to think that really, really, trashy, awful music is music if they're not exposed to anything else and that's bad. I come from a whole different era long before all this stuff was about so I have to tread very carefully not to look as if we're a push button brigade, which we're not at all. My band are very highly skilled players and we wouldn't trade that for the world."

Clapton and Beck teamed up in 2004 and 2007 at Crossroads Guitar Festivals, as well as their old stomping ground at Ronnie Scott's Club in London during Beck's 2007 run there.

Beck kicks off his first shows of the year on January 23rd in Perth, Australia. Clapton kicks off his tour of Japan on February 12th in Osaka.