I guess it’s a testament to an artist’s being long past the drinkin’-n’-druggin’, party-all-night phase of their career when a show goes off like a well-oiled machine headed down the highway. On the way to the venue, I should have taken the advice of the local classic rock station’s “on-air personality” with a grain of salt. She advised that, at 6:45pm, the doors were open for the 7:30pm showtime, and to expect the opening act to take the stage at 8:00pm followed by the headliner at 9:00. She must have been working from empirical evidence gathered from decades of concert-going, assuming that all such shows start fashionably late. Such was not to be the case.
At promptly 7:32pm, Jimmie Vaughan took the stage. His appearance this date was due to the unavailability of the regular opener for the tour, The Robert Rudolph Family Blues Band. A four-piece line-up for the show, Vaughan’s band consisted of two guitars, drums, and a keyboardist also functioning as bass. His set was short, consisting of mostly barroom rockers, and was unfortunately marred by technical difficulty with his amp cutting out in the middle of “Texas Flood”. More unfortunate that this particular song put his late brother on the map– at least for me– and Stevie Ray’s recording is the benchmark by which I judge all others. Jimmie took it in stride, however, appearing through most of the set both to be happy to be there and to have somewhere else he needed to be.
Jimmie bid us thanks and farewell– after only 30 or so minutes– at 8:05pm, and, after a short stage reset and little fanfare, Eric Clapton took the stage at 8:30. What followed was nearly two hours to the minute of everything you’d expect to hear at a Clapton concert– a little blues, a little Cream, a little sit-down Robert Johnson acoustic, “Layla”, “Cocaine” (an easy sing-a-long for the mostly middle-aged audience), “Wonderful Tonight” (for the ladies), and a second and final encore of “Sweet Home Chicago”, which must be the standard show-closer when you invite all the evening’s acts back on stage for one last big guitar number.
I have to say Doyle Bramhall II on second guitar was a revelation. I’d heard his work before on albums, most notably “ARC Angels”. Being a recreational guitarist, I always like to see how the pros do what they do. Early on, I was confused– did they have another guitarist somewhere offstage? Was Clapton-regular Andy Fairweather-Lowe’s spotlight out? I couldn’t figure out who was playing what. I brought out the binoculars and found my answer: Young Doyle is a lefty who learned to play on a right-handed guitar, so his left-handed guitars are strung upside-down. No matter– he kicked some righteous butt up there, handling the Clapton repertoire like he’d been at it twice his years, and demonstrating exactly why he was chosen for the gig.
Pre-tour information had also noted that Chris Stainton and Billy Preston would be joining the band on keyboards, but, apparently it’s an either/or thing, as we only had Chris. The rest of the line-up included Clapton fixtures Steve Gadd (drums), Nathan East (bass), and two somewhat zaftig back-up singers. Everyone’s attire for the evening was pretty much casual Friday– even though it was a Saturday– with blue jeans all around.
About the only niggling little complaint I’d have to voice about the show was how little–besides through his music– Clapton connects with the audience. It was like 25-words-or-less: “Good evening!”, “We’re going to do a few Robert Johnson songs for you.”, “Thank you!”, “Jimmie Vaughan!”, and “Good night!” I sort of felt like I could have just bought the DVD, if you know what I mean. Would have been nice to know if he was having as good a time as we were, too.