[Slowhand] Trucks or no Trucks

[Susan Marchman]

Sammy wrote:  "so this leads me to the next question: anyone who went to both columbus (which was supposedly a great show) and an earlier "derek show", which did you prefer?"

Of the many shows I saw this tour, only two were Truckless, Detroit and Columbus.  I think Trucks absence did give Eric a little more play, but from what I saw, Eric didn't really take up the lion's share anticipated, as he ended up relegating more to Doyle and Tim.  

Eric's performance in Detroit (though still good, still beautiful, still my favored way to spend a couple of hours) was not as inspired comparing it to other shows I attended on the tour (let's leave out past glories.)  I saw many shows where he gave a little more than he did that night.  Were the previous shows better because of Truck's presence, pushing and inspiring Eric to up the ante when it came Eric's turn to solo?  Were they better prior to Detroit because EC was a little under the weather at the Palace and the show timed out minus a few minutes off the norm?  I don't know.  

I do know that the following night in Columbus minus Trucks was probably the most stunning Eric I saw from tour's start to finish, with a greater occurrence of more intense solos throughout the show than the standard '06/'07 performance.   That night was somewhat comparable to another late-in-the tour show, San Diego, which was a Trucks show; Eric seemed to soar a little higher, a little more often that night as well.  

So, San Diego with Trucks and Columbus without Trucks were standouts to me among many nights (from RAH to MSG to the South to the West and Midwest) where there were always magic moments, if not a bone-chilling Clapton solo.  San Diego could've been the result of EC feeling compelled to raise the bar in front of the cameras (and with Cale in the house), and Columbus could've been a final night blowout in his adopted hometown--or could've been that he was just really feeling it despite those outside factors.  Whatever.  The question of Trucks or no Trucks turns out to be relative after all, in my experience anyway.  Not that it matters much, as Ron C. said, "Hey, EC's concerts are like sex, any shows a good one, some are just better than others!"

cheers! 
susan










-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/slowhand/attachments/20070422/594839e5/attachment.htm>