[Slowhand] Clapton - Montreux 86 / After Midnight DVD's

[Kevin Wilson]

The two concerts are very much the same. Eric's guitar has that awful
echo sound at both concerts. Here's a comparison on 2 concerts from 1986
and 2 from 1988 to emphasise my observations.

The overall sound quality of "Eric Clapton and Friends Live 1986"
(recorded on 15 July 1986) is so much better and the performance too
(the flub on Sunshine aside) when compared to "Live at Monteux 1986".
(Surely the whole of the 15 July concert was recorded and we would have
had an added bonus of Robert Cray jamming on "Further on Up the Road").
But to be fair, as can be seen on "Live at Montreux 1986", they were
suffering from the first song onwards under the stage lights. Eric also
seems to make a mistake during the Phil Collins number, which results in
a host of hand signals from an irritated Phil sitting in the air. I'm
also glad Greg Phillinganes disappeared with his synthetic keyboards.
His vocal rendering on "Behind the Mask" is not nice at all. Miracle
among miracles, "Wonderful Tonight" was replaced that year by "Holy
Mother".

The "After Midnight Live" DVD has Jody Linscott on percussion, and I
compared this concert to something that was passed to me in a trade via
the Digest called "25th Anniversary Tour", filmed on 2 November 1988.
The difference is Ray Cooper on percussion and it makes a world of
difference, though Eric is still in his hollow-sounding Strat mode. Mark
Knopfler on second guitar at the 1988 concerts added nothing special for
me and he did not challenge Eric to go to any next level. I was
disappointed by Nathan East's vocals on "Can't Find My Way Home" on
"After Midnight Live" - his falsetto was far too effeminate for my
liking. The flamboyant 80's hairstyles and clothing, especially on the
women look ridiculously dated today. 

Of the 4 concerts filmed, "Eric Clapton and Friends Live 1986" has
outstanding performances of "Holy Mother" and "Tearing Us Apart", which
are good, even by today's standards. The rest is simply going through
the motions.

All-in-all I'm glad the late 80's period ("Same Old Blues" and all) was
over very quickly and by 1990 Eric was stepping out of conformity and
into pursuit of quality.

Aside from this, Eric did Montreux again in 1992. Hopefully they will
release that concert as part of the "Live at Montreux" series next year.
It should show a world of difference.


Kevin


-----Original Message-----
From: joeyjay at att.net [mailto:joeyjay at att.net] 
Sent: 10 October 2006 14:46
To: Slowhand Submissions
Subject: [Slowhand] Clapton - Montreux 86 / After Midnight DVD's

...... Any comments on this booger???

Cheers,
Jay





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