[Slowhand] return of the king-he's BAAAACK!! (cleveland review)

[mangs8 at att.net]

hi all:

sorry havent been posting much, but had a lot of prep work for this weekend's shows, what with 2 digest members staying at the "Twins Towers" (brooke and leah), lining up tix for 8 people at 4 different venues, and making my nathan heads on a stick!! anyways, it was all worth the effort, and paid off in ways i never would have hoped to imagine. here are the highlights:

- toured the rock hall in the afternoon. a lot better presentation than i saw 4 years ago. erics gold tele had been there for display, but obviously was sold in the auction. EC donated a lot of stuff from his personal collection. all the inductees had a 30 second clip during a 50 minute film presentation, and delta nick will be pleased to know the song used in the background of the photo montage for his segment was wonderful tonite.

-through a generous friend, got backstage to meet nathan before the show. also backstage waiting to meet him was mr. ron ellington shy, a member of "the drifters", rock hall inductees who i had just seen a film clip of an hour previously! they are going to work on a film score together, and he may open in cleveland during nathan's upcoming fourplay tour. nathan was very gracious and extremely nice. after offering a few gifts i brought for him and his family, i asked him if he wouldnt mind signing my poster of him and eric from the miller beer after midnite advertising campaign of the late 80's. after seeing such a neat relic of his past, he excused himself for a few minutes. after returning with a guitar pick and 2 more passes for friends, he bid us adieu, gave me my poster, and took off. i unrolled the poster to find not only his signature, but EC's as well!!  to say the least, i was floored at his thoughtfulness. it will have a special place in EC wing of my basement bar area, referred to by mark deavult as the "Southeastern Annex of the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame". 

-robert randolf was stunning! he even played all the instruments up on stage during one song. DONT MISS HIM!!

- set list and highlights as per usual. EC sweated his a** off, and left it all out on-stage. best version of cocaine i have ever witnessed live. EC had fun when robert came back out to play and duel. Mojo was a tremendous close to a terrific show. sherriff solo was ridiculous, as was HYELAW. nice to hear billy preston back in the fold, but he was more subdued than usual, probably taking baby steps back to health. doyle was a revelation! we now have a two-headed guitar monster (i have a great pic of them together looking like they are connected at the hip). my guess of only 14,000 in attendance, but cleveland had a ton of big name artists with big time ticket prices roll thru town the past 10 days, so that was a big factor i'm sure. however, only the true fans were there, so it made for a responsive, respectful crowd, one of the best i have had the pleasure to be a part of at any show.  

- our pictures from the second row with the new camera came out ridiculously good. most of the shots my wife tracy took. i will be forwarding them to slowhand.net and geetarz.org, as well as whereseric.com, so look for them soon and enjoy.

- finished up the nite at fat fish blue, the local bar where robert lockwood jr. (89 year old stepson of robert johnson) plays on wed nites here in c-town. they played FTC over the speakers in between the local band's set.

that's all for now. off to columbus for hopefully another memorable nite. talk at ya all sometime tuesday nite after i (and my bank account) recover.

out
sambo8
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