GOD VISITS BANGKOK

I love going to rock concerts and I was eagerly anticipating my first one here in the Land of Smiles. I got a little discourged when I noticed that the Rolling Stones never stopped here on their never-ending "Bigger Bang Tour" (which I saw in Detroit in August 2005 and has seemingly visited every city in the world EXCEPT Bangkok since). The Black Eyed Peas were here last summer, but they are not exactly my cup of tea (although my neighbors saw them and raved about the experience).

When I learned back in October that Eric Clapton was coming here, I knew I had to go. I saw Clapton once before, way back in 1988 at the Palace of Auburn Hills outside Detroit. That was a pretty memorable show as Marc Knopfler (from Dire Straits) was a part of his touring band that time around and the late, great Stevie Ray Vaughan made a guest appearance for the last tune.

That time, the set consisted of Clapton and company plowing through a selection of songs littered with greatest hits. On Monday, it was a bit different. At first it seemed like a Derek & The Dominos revival with four of the first five songs coming from the classic album "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs."

Tell The Truth
Key To The Highway
Got to Get Better in A Little While
Little Wing
Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad?

After that, the whole band left Clapton alone and he sat down and brought out his acoustic guitar for one song. Then the band rejoined him for a few more tunes done in a laid back style:

Driftin' Blues (Clapton Solo Acoustic)
Outside Woman Blues
Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out
Running On Faith

Next, the band went back to rocking out. The rest of the set leaned heavily on the blues and it wasn't until the last four songs that EC decided to play some tunes that those familiar with his work only from listening to the radio would know:

Motherless Children
Little Queen of Spades
Anyday
Wonderful Tonight
Layla

Encore:

Cocaine
Crossroads

I didn't mind the set. I thought it was amazing and I was in a bit of a trance watching Clapton and the two other young guitarists in his band (Doyle Bramhall II and Derek Trucks) trade licks song after song. If you are a fan of extended guitar solos or just an air-guitar playing wannabe (like myself) then this night was for you. The rest of the band, which included bass player Steve Jordan, drummer Willie Weeks, and Chris Stainton and Tim Carmon on the keys were also given a chance to shine throughout the evening.

I did notice that the acoustics weren't that great at Bangkok's Impact Arena. This was a sentiment echoed on the front page of Tuesday's Bangkok Post:


I honestly expected this, so it didn't bother me too much. At least there were two big screens on both sides of the stage which showed a lot of closeups of the hands of EC and his cohorts blistering the fretboards.

One interesting thing (at least to me) about this show were the tickets. Instead of the standard paper tickets that I am used to, we got little plastic credit card tix with a nice picture of Clapton on the front. This made for a nice little souvenir. I wish all my old concert ticket stubs were like this.


One general note about concert etiquette here in Bangkok: When you go to a rock show and they say "Thank You - Good Night!" for the first time, it doesn't really mean "Thank You - Good Night!" The band usually comes out for at least one more song (in this case two) before the show is really over (this is called "The Encore").

I bring this up because when Clapton said "Thank You - Good Night!" right after "Layla," he and his band exited the stage. I guess this was a cue for the audience to exit their seats as well, and when the band came back, after only a few minutes, a bunch of them were standing right in front of us (we had 2nd row, upper level seat, right in front of the aisleway and railing). This meant that I had to get up and politely ask people to move about 20 times so I could enjoy the last two songs from the comfort of my own seat. Maybe the lack of quality rock shows coming through town hasn't given the fine folks of Bangkok enough training when it comes to attending them.

All in all it was a great night. I have been fortunate to see many legends of rock guitar on stage since I started going to concerts (Jimmy Page, Pete Townsend, Keith Richards, Eddie Van Halen, David Gilmour, Prince, Kurt Cobain, The Edge, Jack White, Ace Frehley, Angus Young, Dave Navarro, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Vernon Reid, etc.) and have enjoyed them all. But on this night, Clapton, proved that he's still the Guitar God and it was great to see him and his two young disciples delivering a slice of Rock Heaven to an adoring Bangkok crowd.