I had always kind of felt I missed the boat on seeing Eric Clapton in concert. Sure he comes to NYC just about every year for a pair of shows at Madison Square Garden, but when I've look at the setlists I see too many blues covers and too few of his hits. I dig Slowhand, but not a disciple who worships everything he does.
But when tickets went on sale for his pair of shows this year, I decided it was time to see the guitar legend some call God and picked up tickets for the second show on Sunday, October 7, 2018.
Our seats were in the very last row of section 226 but we had a nice clear shot of the stage and caught the very end of Jimmie Vaughan's set as we took our seats. I was amazed how much of the audience were already seated. Vaughan, and Gary Clark Jr. who would come on after him, both played to an almost fully seated enthusiastic sold out crowd.
Clapton came out a little after nine and played a 14 song set lasting over 90 minutes.
The set started with a trio of blues covers starting with J.J. Cale's "Somebody's Knocking" followed by "Key to the Highway", then Willie Dixon's "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man."
The immediate thing I noticed and was pleased with was how great Clapton's voice sounded - solid and strong. The blues set was fine and each song followed a pattern of a few verses, then a piano break, then an organ break and then guitar before closing out the song. Clapton's top notch band includes guitarist Doyle Bramhall II and I have to say I was surprised how many of the leads he played throughout the night, but Clapton was always given a spot to shine during every tune.
The crowd response was strong during this opening trio but the first huge cheers of the night came during the next song, his hit cover of the Wailers' "I Shot The Sheriff." Here's the video I shot of it below.
Next up Clapton took a seat and treated everyone to an acoustic set starting with "Driftin' Blues", probably the biggest "beer run" moment of the night. Clapton then started up his cover of "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" which at first had the crowd cheering loudly and clapping along as it appeared many thought this was his acoustic cover of "Layla" as the intro sounded similar, the clap-a-long stopped as the lyrics kicked in.
"Layla" would actually be next and when the crowd realized that's what it actually was this time, the clapping and then singing along was back getting one of the biggest responses of the night. I've never been a huge fan of this unplugged reworking, but it was nice to hear a song I knew. "Tears in Heaven" was next and he delivered a solid version that folks loved, just not one of my personal favorites.
At this point the show was more than half over and it was enjoyable; a subdued toe tapper and honestly more or less what I expected.
The acoustic instruments were then put away and the show finally kicked into that higher gear I was hoping for but didn't really expect when the band kicked into the one Cream cover of the night with "White Room." Here's my video below.
"Wonderful Tonight" followed and it sounded great. I was actually surprised by the crowd reaction in that it was fine, but for such a big radio hit, not has loud as I would have thought.
The crowd response I was expecting came next as soon as Clapton kicked into the opening riff of "Crossroads." It was a great rendition with Clapton tearing it up. The band then stuck with the Robert Johnson catalog with a long cover of "Little Queen of Spades" giving every band member a space to shine.
The main set ended with an amazing powerful rockin' version of "Cocaine" which had most of the crowd on their feet.
Clapton and band came back joined by openers Jimmie Vaughan and Gary Clark Jr. for an encore of Joe Cocker's "High Time We Went", giving Paul Carrack the lead vocal duties.
Overall I would say this show exceeded my expectations. A few of the performances, especially "Cocaine," I feel were as good as I could ever have hoped to have seen. Clapton looked great, sounded great and at times showed he could still rip out a solo like few others.
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