Clapton is definitely (still) God!

Eric Clapton, Lucca, July 7th, 2006
The wife and I travelled some 700 kms (there and back) to the small walled-in town of Lucca (the only one apparently with standing walls), not too far from Pisa, to see “Mr. Slowhand” himself, Eric Clapton. He began on time at 9:30 pm and played for 2 hours non-stop with one encore. He began with “Pretending” which is one of my favourite. Clapton was backed up by 11 members, including some pretty young guitarists who could have even been his kids (what an honour for them to play next to him!). I saw him in 1995 in Rome. He began that concert by saying, “If you’ve come to hear my old hits, forget it as I’m only going to play blues”. Which he did. In Lucca instead (a very, very nice town by the way) he played some old and new hits, such as “So Tired” and everyone’s fav, Cocaine and Layla. His opening act was Robert Cray. Cray joined him at the end for a few tunes, including “Crossroads”. While staring at this phenomenal artist, I kept on thinking about his long relation with friend George Harrison, especially on the song “Layla” which was named in honour of George’s first wife, model Patti Harrison (who then joined Clapton). So great was their friendship that they remained good friends with Clapton rendering George honour one year after his death at the Royal Albert Hall with the “Concert For George” concert. I also kept on thinking about the concert for Bangladesh. Harrison organised that event in 1971 in New York’s Madison Square Garden to also help his mentor (on the sitar), Ravi Shankar. He got some good friends involved, such as Bob Dylan and Clapton. Harrison’s aids would go to JFK to see the arrival of the plane from England with Eric onboard. But he wasn’t there. So they’d go back. And he still wasn’t there. He finally showed up but was in pretty bad shape as he was going through a rather bad period with drugs (Dylan on the other hand was extremely nervous to be on stage again). But there he was on stage playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. Clapton played about 20 songs in Lucca. Someone in the 70s had written on a wall “Clapton is God”! Slowhand’s performance in Lucca still confirmed that statement (pictures by M. Rimati).