Eric Clapton - World Tour 2011

We heard of Eric Clapton coming to Hong Kong back in September even though the concert was in February, immediately I wanted to go. The week of the concert, I had been sick at home and thought I wouldn't be able to attend this concert but in the end things worked out and I was able to see the legend.

Eric Clapton is good live, his voice hasn't changed much though he never did have an amazing voice, it was more his guitar skills that gave him the claim to fame. He put on a pretty simple show with the most flashy thing being the lights. It was just him, a couple of musicians and two female backing singers. Another point to how the concert was very low-key, was how the whole band (except the backup singers) were in jeans and tshirts, and could easily pass for roadies, even Eric Clapton himself! He barely spoke throughout the whole thing except to say "Thank you!" at the end of each song, and to gruffly say "It's nice to be back." at one point. His guitar skills are just as good as ever and even though the show wasn't big and over the top like other concerts I'd been to, it still blew me away. His setlist consisted of a few of his big hits, such as Layla and Cocaine. But for most of the songs he played, even if you were a huge Eric Clapton fan, you wouldn't really know them, as he did many old blues songs from the 30s which was still pretty awesome.

My favourite little memory was how on our side of the stage, you could see off to the side a roadie going and putting headphones on to tune all of Eric Clapton's guitars while they were offstage. I thought this was really cool as even though you're technically a random guy, you still get to handle and tune Eric Clapton's very own guitars.

If you want to see Eric Clapton, I'd advise anyone who has an interest in him and his music or traditional blues, also those that go to concerts for the music and not for the the show.

Eric Clapton performing Badge live in Hong Kong.