Eric Clapton — Budokan, Tokyo, 2001

Filmed live concert of Eric Clapton at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, recorded on 4 December 2001 during the Japanese leg of the Reptile World Tour. The tour supported Clapton’s 2001 album Reptile and closed the year with a run of Budokan dates across late November and early December. This full concert follows the tour’s regular shape: an opening acoustic set (Key to the Highway, Reptile, Tears in Heaven, an acoustic Layla, Change the World) followed by an extended electric set in which Clapton returns to his blues roots on Goin’ Down Slow, I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man and Five Long Years, before the classics Badge, Cocaine, Wonderful Tonight and the electric reading of Layla. He is backed by his 2001 touring band: Andy Fairweather-Low, Billy Preston, David Sancious and Greg Phillinganes on keyboards, Nathan East on bass and Steve Gadd on drums. A representative blues rock document of Clapton’s live repertoire at the turn of the 2000s, mixing traditional blues covers with his own compositions, filmed in Tokyo in 2001.