I had no intention of doing this, and was fixing up a deranged post for tomorrow that I managed to finish prepping ahead of schedule, so let's pop this up because, why not?
This guy made it to 75, and he doesn't appear to be ill -- save for some awful degenerative nerve disease in his hands that's essentially retired him from performance -- so let's celebrate!
There's no need to substantiate who he is or where he's been, so I won't.
I personally like him most as 1/3 of Cream, but he's been in a few other legendary groups and has enjoyed a long solo career.
Yes, Eric Clapton was born in 1945 and is now 75. I'm starting to feel tremendously older by the day.
He's got more archival, unreleased material than most artists have officially released output.
This right here purports to be the definitive edition of one of the best ones.
It seems sourced from multitrack tapes, so it might have been captured for an unissued live record.
A portion of it was broadcast on the radio, so it could also be a complete pre-broadcast thing.
Either way, it sounds fantastic and dude plays really well, so let's do the thing.
Eric Clapton
Santa Monica Civic Auditorium
Santa Monica, California USA
2.11.1978
CD1
01 introduction
02 Peaches and Diesel
03 Wonderful Tonight
04 Lay Down Sally
05 Next Time You See Her
06 The Core
07 We're All the Way
08 Rodeo Man
09 Fool's Paradise
10 Cocaine
11 Badge
12 Double Trouble
13 Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out
CD2
01 Let It Rain
02 Knockin' On Heaven's Door
03 Last Night
04 Key to the Highway
05 Goin' Down Slow/Ramblin' On My Mind
06 Layla
07 Bottle of Red Wine
08 You'll Never Walk Alone
Total time: 2:07:32
Eric Clapton - guitar & vocals
Dick Sims - keyboards
George Terry - guitar
Carl Radle - bass & vocals
Marcy Levy - vocals, guitar, percussion & harmonica
Jaime Oldaker - drums
multitrack masters, possibly recorded for an unissued live LP;
part of this show was also broadcast on FM radio
sourced from CDs 1&2 of the 2017 Mid Valley Records bootleg box set California Intoxicating Wind
794 MB FLAC/March 2020 archive link
I did nothing to alter this, as it's supposed to be the ultra-superior version of this show, so any flaws it might have are what they are. It seems pretty spot on.
Like I said I will be back tomorrow to close out the month with something worthy of March's finale for sure.
Do enjoy this 42 year old classic performance of the legendary birthday lad, though. Seventy-five is a milestone... you might even say it's a Badge of honor.--J.
