Venue: Nippon Budokan
City: Tokyo
Country: Japan
Eric Clapton – guitar / vocals
Doyle Bramhall II – guitar / vocals
Derek Trucks – guitar
Chris Stainton – keyboards
Tim Carmon – keyboards
Willie Weeks – bass
Steve Jordan – drums
Michelle John – backing vocals
Sharon White – backing vocals
None
01. Tell The Truth
02. Five Long Years
03. Got To Get Better In A Little While
04. Old Love
05. Motherless Children
06. Driftin’
07. Key to The Highway
08. Outside Woman Blues
09. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out
10. Running On Faith
11. After Midnight
12. Little Queen Of Spades
13. Before You Accuse Me
14. Wonderful Tonight
15. Layla
16. Cocaine
17. Crossroads (encore)
Review by Tsuzuki Hiroyuki
Eric has appeared on the stage of Budokan after 3 years’ interval. I have been believing he would stand here with Jack and Ginger. Unfortunately the dream of Cream’s reunion at Budokan has vanished away.
My sadness was a little comforted by a few Dominos numbers. "Got to get better in a little while"and "Tell the truth" was performed for the first time in these 30 years in Japan. As compared with "In Concert "of Dominos Eric’s solo is very short, having a little lost keen edge of guitar. I wonder whether growing old has deprived him of the ability to play aggressive long guitar solo.
Derek Trucks, another guitar player, is marvelous, being superior to Eric in playing technical solo. His fingering creats flowing good tunes in every number. I wish Eric could be equivalent to Derek in technique.
Thanks to agressive performance of Steve Jordan and Willie Weeks, Eric Clapton and his band has metamorphosed into the band itself. The interplay of drums, bass and guitars has enabled the band to play in more organic mood.
Eric has shown his real ability at slow blues like "Old love" or "Queen of Spades". His emotional guitar tune has penetrated into a large audience’s heart. I was much impressed with that weeping guitar.
"Five long years" was performed in very different style from the number played 3 years ago. Unfortunately "Anyday" and "Pretending" were omitted from the set list. I want to hear more Dominos number like "Why dose love got to be so sad"or"Little wing". 10 days running show is long enough to play more various numbers. I wish my prayers be answered.