Eric Clapton played his most famous hits today at the O2 arena in Prague
Updates: 06/05/2022 23:30
Released: 05.06.2022, 22:30
Prague – British guitarist, singer and composer Eric Clapton today offered a selection of songs covering more than six decades of his music career in the fully occupied O2 arena in Prague. In addition to famous older solo songs, such as the ballad Tears in Heaven, he also played hits that were created with the groups Cream or Derek and the Dominos. The Prague concert was part of a European music tour and took place after two years of delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Clapton, 71, is one of the world’s most respected musicians and last performed in Prague in 2013. This year they brought with them their longtime collaborators Nathan East (bass guitar), Paul Carrack (keyboards), Chris Stainton (keyboards), Doyle Bramhall II (guitar), and vocalists Sharon White and Katie Kissoon.
Today, fans of blues and bluesrock filled the vast majority of seats in the largest Czech arena. The evening started with the front band Bluesanovas, which mainly played its own blues work and was a success with the audience. She was rewarded with more than half an hour of applause.
Then the main star appeared on the stage. In the O2 arena today, mostly proven songs mapping Clapton’s sound have long sounded. In the first electric block, he played, for example, the blues standards Key to the Highway and Hoochie Coochie Man, a remake of Bob Marley’s I Shot the Sheriff, or the song White Room from Cream’s Wheels of Fire from 1968.
In the following part, Clapton put down his electric guitar and took up the acoustic guitar, on which he played, among others, his hits Layla, Tears in Heaven or Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out. When he played the acoustic version of Layla, the audience applauded to the beat throughout.
The guitarist picked up the electric instruments again and together with their conclusions they played the last block. It consisted of the song Badge, written by Clapton with Beatles guitarist George Harrison, and recorded with Cream in 1969. This was followed by the songs of legendary bluesman Robert Johnson’s Cross Road Blues and Little Queen of Spades, and finally Clapton’s version of Cocaine, which he wrote in 1976 guitarist JJ Cale.
The concert lasted over an hour and a half, and after the end, the audience demanded an applause with a storm of applause. Clapton chose Joe Cocker’s cover version of High Time We Went for the song.
Clapton has worked in the bands Yardbirds, Cream, Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominos since the 1960s. Since the 1970s, he has embarked on a solo career, releasing over 20 studio albums, most recently the 2018 album Happy Xmas. He is one of the white blues and is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, winner of 17 Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Order of the British Empire. In 2003, the prestigious music magazine Rolling Stone ranked Clapton in fourth place in the ranking of the 100 best guitarists of all time. Only Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman and BB King finished ahead of him.