Before I start – sorry this is so long, I guess I had a lot to say… I haven’t written about a show in a while, and I went to a great one last Friday that deserves a write up. I’ve been to a few in between that haven’t quite made the blog: Guster, The Fray, Willis Alan Ramsey, Dave Matthews Band, Ben Folds with the Houston Symphony. This is no reflection on the Legendaryness of any of those concerts, I just didn’t get around to writing about them. Ben Folds in particular was one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen, hands down. It didn’t hurt to be on the 3rd row, center stage. But, that’s a story for another day. Friday night was Eric Clapton, with some very special guests and that’s what prompted me to write.
To start off with, we had shitty seats. Usually, I’m pretty good about scoring good tickets, this time, I spaced out. I had it on my calendar to buy tickets the morning they went on sale and missed the on sale time by about 45 minutes. Bad move. The result was that we were on the side of the stage on the last row. I was less than pleased. Given the seat locations, the show was going to have to be damned good or I was going to be pissed. It was damned good. Clapton sauntered out on to the stage at about
There was another dude playing guitar on far stage right that I couldn’t get a good look at so I wondered who he was for a while. I remind you, we were like 10 miles from the stage so I couldn’t really see much detail at first. I finally get a good look at the guy and figure out that it is Doyle Bramhall II, a hell of a guitarist in his own right. Doyle has a long history with Eric, in fact I saw his band open up for Clapton at Reunion Arena in
The point of all of this is to say that between Clapton, Derek Trucks and Doyle Bramhall II, there was some serious firepower on that stage. I was particularly excited to see Trucks as I’ve heard so much about him, listened to a bit of his music, but never had the opportunity to see him live. I was really impressed. Funny thing though, the thing that struck me most about him was not his playing. He’s a great player, but I knew that already. The thing that impressed me was that his delivery is calm, cool and collected. No weird facial contortions or antics, none of the typical white guy mistakes of trying to look cool. The guy just listens and plays for all he’s worth, I really respect that. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t emotionally detached, in fact you could tell just by looking that he was totally dialed in. He just didn’t feel the need to prove it to anyone.
The set list overall was great. As I mentioned, the show started of with Tell the Truth, then into Key To The Highway, Got to Get Better in A Little While, Little Wing and Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad? After that, they toned it down a bit and did a semi acoustic set. Clapton has done this all three times I’ve seen him and I suspect he’s been doing it since the success of his Unplugged album in 1992. He started out this section of the show on his own with Driftin' Blues and then the rest of the band joined him for Outside Woman Blues, Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out and Running On Faith. I was particularly glad to hear Nobody Knows You and Running on Faith as those are two songs that I really like and have never heard him play live before. After that, the full band came back and they did Motherless Child, Little Queen of Spades, Further On Up The Road, Wonderful Tonight and finished up with the Derek and the Dominoes version of Layla. Amber was particularly excited about the last one as it is one of her all time favorite songs. Has to be the Derek and the Dominoes version though, not the acoustic version. The night could have ended there and I would have been a happy man, but it didn’t.
Of course the band came back for an encore. First up was a great version of Cocaine. Always a crowd pleaser. He’s done that song every time I’ve seen him perform (May 1998 – Superdome, New Orleans, 2001 – Reliant Arena, Dallas and 2007 – Toyota Center, Houston.) As expected the crowd was happy with that choice. The second song of the encore was where it got really interesting. Before they started to play, a fourth guitar player walked out onto the stage. I immediately recognized Robert Cray before he started off and they played Crossroads. It was un-fucking-believable. They tore up Crossroads with Clapton and Cray sharing the mike and trading licks at one point. Too cool. It takes some serious balls to bring Robert Cray on your tour and have him come out for one freaking song. I would have loved for him to stay out there longer, but I guess that would diminish the shock value.
Overall, great show. It was a treat to see Clapton as always. Trucks and Bramhall are great additions to the lineup and having Robert Cray come out was the proverbial icing on the cake. Well done. Which leads me to my final point. One thing I really respect about Clapton is that he’s not afraid to share the stage. By bringing along and highlighting Cray, Trucks and Bramhall he is really exposing those guys to an audience that might not otherwise hear of them. As much as I respect Robert Cray, he can’t sell out a stadium on his own. Clapton gives them the venue, the exposure and time in front of the audience that will prove a real boost to the younger guys in particular. I hope to see all of them come to town again soon.
PS – the audience was actually not very annoying last night. Although I did see a few people that needed to back off of the cervezas and quit wearing dorky loafers.
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