Concert Details
23 May 2011 – Eric Clapton & His Band
Location:
Venue: Royal Albert Hall
City: London
Country: United Kingdom
Band Lineup:
Eric Clapton – guitar, vocals
Chris Stainton – keyboards
Tim Carmon – keyboards
Willie Weeks – bass
Steve Gadd – drums
Michelle John – backing vocals
Sharon White – backing vocals
Support:
Andy Fairweather Low & The Low Riders
Set List:
01. Key To The Highway
02. Tell The Truth
03. Hoochie Coochie Man
04. Old Love
05. Tearing Us Apart
06. Driftin’
07. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out
08. Still Got The Blues (Gary Moore)
09. Same Old Blues (JJ Cale)
10. When Somebody Thinks You’re Wonderful
11. Layla
12. Badge
13. Wonderful Tonight
14. Before You Accuse Me
15. Little Queen Of Spades
16. Cocaine
17. Crossroads
Fan Reviews:
Review by Mike Sawin
I love Eric Clapton. Loved his music since I first heard ‘I Feel Free’. I’ve seen him countless times in many countries and supported him in the ‘bad old days’ when it was more fashionable to deride him than admire him. I’ve defended him when people said he was ‘clapped out’ in the dark, old days when he was a drunk. I have all his records (OK-maybe not the last 3 offerings) in multiple formats plus a multitude of his session works. I have, quite literally, the T-shirt and programme. But last night the penultimate show of his band dates left me deflated. Maybe he was just tired at the mid-point of his residency at the RAH, but it seemed to me as if he couldn’t really be bothered. For most of the show he went through the motions and played the obligatory solos in the right places at the right times, but it seemed to me he was on auto-pilot. The first half was progressing fine and I had high hopes of even a great show after a tasty solo on ‘Tell The Truth’. But then-disaster. He made, quite simply, some ghastly mistakes on ‘Badge’ and it was all down-hill after that. It was if he felt that it was an unrecoverable error and couldn’t wait for the evening to pass. Memo to Eric: On the many occasions I’ve seen you, I could count on 2 hands the amount of mistakes you’ve made-on a musical note to mistake ratio that’s pretty impressive.
But he whizzed through the rest of the evening and played the shortest set of the tour so far. And, to add insult to injury, at the end he just walked off, giving the crowd a dismissive wave without even looking at them. Now pardon me, but I’ve spent £80 of my hard-earned and feel that I’ve been short-changed. It comes to something when a friend (not a casual EC admirer but a long in the tooth supporter) said that it was a strange night when the best musician on stage was Chris Stainton!
I have the chance of going tonight which is the last of his normal band before the Stevie Winwood stint. But I’m not bothering. I have high hopes for the next part of the tour and I’m sure that he’ll be rejuvenated.