I love to see and hear music made.
If I could possibly list the number of rock and roll shows I've seen it would make me appear older than my 44 years. My tastes are ecletic and voracious.
My more-than-10-times club includes Springsteen, Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keen, the late Harry Chapin, the Stones and a Stone Pony graduate named John Eddie. I just saw John last week and have tickets next month to see Robert Earl and Lyle in the same week. There are tens of artists in the at-least-five-shows category and hundreds I've seen once or twice.
In the blues arena, I've seen Albert Collins, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, Etta James, Stevie Ray Vaughan and countless white boys who come close.
I sat in the online ticket queue for Eric Clapton several weeks back not because I knew all the words to all his songs, but because I liked the Robert Johnson release and "a Clapton show" seemed a necessary rite of passage for one who cares about music. I was frankly more excited about the group we assembled for our eight tickets than the show itself.
At the last minute, my daughter had to work and Anne's husband, Christophe, agreed somewhat reluctantly to substitute. As an artist and a Frenchman it is his duty to approach such opportunitities with some level of suspicion and disdain.
As we stood on the drink line during the opening act, Christophe commented on how much gray hair there was in the crowd and how few young people he saw. I blamed the $75 ticket price, but he had me wondering if perhaps the generation who punched the air when we sang "hope I die before I get old" was holding on to the past a little too tightly.
Clapton took the stage looking more like a well-tenured professor than a rock and roll legend. He wore a black button-down shirt, jeans, wire-rimmed glasses and the suede athletic shoes popular on Golden Ager bus tours.
Within the first chords of "Let It Rain" details of his appearance disappeared as he allowed his guitar to speak clearly as to why we were gathered in that place. A decent seat, binoculars and the screens on either side of the stage gave me a steady view of the source of the sounds. Without drama or show, he coaxed and bent sounds from a guitar that seem to have never appeared on any recording anywhere.
Each song was punctuated only with a "thank you" from the stage. The only other words he spoke were a school-attendance type recitation of the names of the band. His guitar held all the eloquence in the room.
"I Shot the Sheriff" came up early in the set and I spotted Christophe on his feet. Anne had tears in her eyes and Bobby was grinning so hard his face was a mask. I watched them for only a few seconds, transfixed by now in watching Clapton's effortless hands as I listened.
With nothing more mind-altering than champagne and strawberries, his notes produced for me not just sounds but colors and tastes.
He sat down with an acoustic guitar for a few numbers from "Me and Mr. Johnson," nearly still except for his hands and a small left-footed tap dance that seemed to pull just a little more into the guitar.
With the exception of "Sheriff" most of the fans at this point had remained seated. It dawned on me that if a Springsteen show is a tent revival, this was a rock and roll cathedral of worship.
That would have been a fine comparison until the first strands of "Badge" then "Layla" then "Cocaine." The audience was now completely frenzied, but Clapton remained purposeful and easy. I closed my eyes several times trying to force my other senses to take in more of the sound. Each time I opened them, I went immediately to his liquid hands. Fifty-nine-year old hands that must be the envy of any guitar player of any age.
I've never seen music produced in that way. It's still early on the tour. Treat yourself.




Copyright 2004 Judi Griggs