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Clapton Cologne Concert Details: 15 April 2004

16 Apr 04

Eric Clapton’s 2004 World Tour continued it’s jaunt through Germany with a concert on 15 April in Cologne. Wolfgang Schueer sent this review to Where’s Eric!:

The final show in Germany was sold-out again. 15.000 people in the Cologne Arena gave EC and the band a warm welcome. And they didn’t leave the arena disappointed after about 110 minutes of great music except that the duration of the shows seems to be getting shorter and shorter. From the start the band seemed to be more confident than the night before. They started with a powerful "Let it rain", followed by "Hoochie Coochie Man", "Walk out in the rain" and a really great version of "Bell Bottom Blues" – the best one I have heard so far during this tour and the first hightlight of the show.

Again "sheriff" proved beyond doubt that EC is still one of the best guitarísts in the business. Listening to his solo works in "Sheriff", "Kind hearted woman", "Have you ever loved a woman", "Got to get better…" – just to name a few – should stop every discussion about his talent as a guitar player today compared to his playing in the early days of his career. He is still at the peak.

The setlist was again downsized to 15 songs plus encore. Also the order of the songs had changed. "Layla" was immediately followed by "Cocaine". For me this is not the best choice. There were no intros nor outros played on both songs. I prefer the "Layla" version with the long intro before the first well-known riff and also the "Cocaine" intro.

During the encore Robert Randolph came back on stage setting in during the second half of "Sunshine" and joining the band for "Mojo". As before we heard some nice interplay beween EC, D. Bramhall and R. Randolph who set the pace but EC had no problem to keep up. The battle between the sixstrings and the 13-strings-pedalsteel-guitar ended in a draw.

Cologne Set List

1. Let It Rain
2. Hoochie Coochie Man
3. Walk Out In The Rain
4. Bell Bottom Blues
5. I Shot The Sheriff
6. Milkcow’s Calf Blues
7. When You Got A Good Friend
8. They’re Red Hot
9. Kind Hearted Woman
10. Got To Get Better In A Little While
11. Have You Ever Loved A Woman
12. Badge
13. Wonderful Tonight
14. Layla
15. Cocaine
16. Sunshine Of Your Love (encore with Robert Randolph)
17. I Got My Mojo Workin’ (encore with Robert Randolph)