I talked to a friend who saw Clapton/Daltry in New Orleans last night—Said the same thing as above, that Roger Daltry was the heart and soul of the gig.
That said, I have seen Eric Clapton play 4 or 5 times over the years, and always thought he was outstanding…
I saw Clapton a few years ago and he was amazing. He interacted with the audience, was animated, and played for a long time. He played lots of old stuff which many artists don’t like to do, and mixed in new stuff as well. I’m a big fan of Derek and the Dominoes, the Blues Breakers, Cream, and Blind Faith so I knew most of the material. He made it fresh though.
Robert Randolph opened the show and they played together at the end. That really rocked.
Based on everyone else’s comments, I wonder if you saw a Clappelganger that night. 
If Joni Mitchell and Eric Clapton want to play nothing but new stuff, fine- let them play at small clubs and charge 5 bucks a ticket. Better yet, since the concert is basically just a lengthy advertisement for the new CD, perform the new music for FREE!!! I don’t pay to watch infomercials, do I? I don’t pay to listen to sales pitches, do I? Then why should I pay for the “privilege” of listening to you play unfamiliar tunes that you’re trying to get me to buy???
If you charge a hundred bucks a ticket and perform at a big arena, you damn well better play the songs you KNOW the audience expects to hear. If you don’t, you’re not an iconoclast, you’re a rip off artist and a jerk.
I had a case of clappelganger once from wearing undershorts that were too tight.
You have certain expectations which don’t accord with my own, or that of a significant number of people. I know people who go to concerts having heard the same old shit a million times and who want to hear something new. I know there are also a lot of people who do just want to hear the hits.
It seems to me that it’s pretty well known that many artists tour to promote their latest album and they are going to play a lot of material off it. Further, artists don’t generally say in their publicity what they will be playing. It seems to me to be a serious stretch to suggest that they are ripping you off somehow by doing what anyone who looked into it would figure they were going to do, and that they never said they wouldn’t do.
If your expectations of a product are very specific, you’d probably better find out what you’re getting before you put your money down. If you don’t, it’s on you.
Frankly in this day and age where setlists are up on the internet about ten minutes after the first show of a tour, you have no excuse whatever.
Sorry, Princhester, I don’t buy ANY of what you’re saying.
If you want to say, “I am an artiste, and I don’t care what the audience thinks,” fine. You have a right to play whatever you want. But don’t dare pretend that people paying a lot of money to watch you don’t have a right to feel cheated.
If Joni Mitchell is sick of “Both Sides Now” or Clapton is bored with “Sunshine of Your Love,” there’s no law that says they have to play those songs. They have a right to play their new material. But if they do, they have NO right to expect loyalty from old fans. Play your new material in small clubs. Make your new material available on the Internet at a discount. But do NOT charge big bucks and then dis your fans.
When Clapton comes to Madison Square Garden, and does a series of radio commercials that feature snippets of his biggest hits, an audience that’s paid top dollar to see his show has EVERY right to feel cheated if he plays nothing but new stuff. And they have every right to let him know how cheated they feel. Those radio spots were false advertising. Clapton ripped off his audience, and they SHOULD let him know how pissed off they were- just as YOU would if the chef at your favorite restaurant served you comething completely different from what you ordered and then expected you to be grateful to him.
You should get the Cream reunion DVD, which is one of the few places where you will see Jack lately. They’ve all lost a few steps, but not too bad, especially “Sunshine of Your Love” at the end.
As for me, “Songs for a Tailor” is one of my favorite albums.
You’ve gone from some very general pronouncement based on no specific instance (which didn’t make sense and still doesn’t for reasons already given) to complaining about a very specific advertising campaign. The campaign, assuming it was as you say, sounds misleading.
This says nothing at all about the general principle.
Thanks everyone for the suggestions, we went to the Eric Clapton concert last night, and here are my impressions.
First of all Daltry. As everyone mentioned, was much more talkative. He joked about the novelty of being an opening act, and of how no one should question if he still had a voice (I’m guessing someone somewhere suggested he did not anymore). I didn’t really recognize any of his songs, but didn’t expect to. They played some pretty good rock music, with lots of energy. He played a little less than an hour, and according to my date he was ‘too freaking loud.’
Then came Clapton. As others have said he was not jumping around on stage, he roamed from one corner of a 10x10 carpet to the microphone and that was it. Then again, he’s not Shakera, I wasn’t expecting him to be.
His music however was awesome! He played for about two hours, and I recognized four songs (I shot the Sheriff, Layla, Cocaine, and Wonderful Tonight), but even the ones I did not know were unbelievable. Just before I Shot the Sheriff he played a bluesy song I do not know, but his guitar solo was so beautiful and sad, it had me mesmerized.
He did an acoustic set about half way through, where he played Layla, and he is just a guitar master. Every note he played, on acoustic or electric was perfect. There was lots of emotion on his playing, even though he looked as though he would have been perfectly fine if the audience was not there and he was playing in his garage. He actually said 4 phrases, my date and I laugh ed about that, when he came out he said ‘Good Evening’, he said ‘Thank You’ after most songs, one of his songs he dedicated to three people I do not know, and at the end he said ‘Goodnight’. That was it.
He closed with Cocaine and then came out for one encore, and everyone I talked to enjoyed his performance.
I’m glad I did not listen to any of his music before the show, because I was able to listen to each song as a new thing. His band was also very good, he had a base player, a drummer, two keyboard/organists, and two backup singers.
Overall I would say if you have a chance to go see him, do so. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.