[Slowhand] Irving Plaza 1994

[Mel Boss]

The discussions that Rick Batty initiated regarding 'HYELAW,' 'Five Long Years' and 'Kind Hearted Woman' got me to thinking also. It is an intesting thread... Who is to say which version is best, but for me, the show that I still today find electrifying - Irving Plaza, November 28, 1994 "Club Full of Blues"... It is an audience recording, but a good one. There is a good deal of audience sounds, but it is not annoying chatter. Instead, it is the sounds of a very appreciative bunch. There is a highly amusing point following a blistering version of Forty-Four where there is a lull in the applause and chatter - a lone voice calls out "You are too cool!" And the band cracks up... In this show, I remember most fondly several songs: 
-"Sinners Prayer" for its great/gritty EC vocal, 
-"Third Degree for its earthy solos - (EC and CStainton and GaryPortnoy), 
-"Early inthe Morning" for its contrasting EC solos - quiet, emotional to blistering, 
-"Black Cat Bone" (I haven't heard EC perform this song before or since) 
-and "Five Longers Years" for some of the same reasons as "Early" and a guitar string that lets go in a big way (guess a guitar string can be bent just so far)...
I recall several slowhanders who were present at that show relate (herein) how really special that evening was - the last show of three at Irving Plaza (a small venue) and the last show of a long tour (NBTB). If you can imagine the NBTB video except with twice the emotion - that is this performance. EC even talks a bit at the begining of the show about how special the tour had been for himself and the band. I find myself going back to this show - whenever I want to loose myself in what must have been one of his best nights ever. We are so lucky that someone taped the show that night. I think that EC would agree.
Mel Boss



Mel Boss & Darlene Kasl
darmel at sbcglobal.net
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