Name: ERIC CLAPTON - BUDOKAN 1997 SOUNDBOARD MASTER: DEFINITIVE EDITION (2 CD)
SKU: K7232516
Availability: BackOrder

Description

Live at Budokan, Tokyo, Japan 27th October 1997 STEREO SBD

[Stereo soundboard master recording of the Budokan concert broadcast on satellite TV exclusively in 1997!]

　More original masters have been delivered from Taper, a veteran of the UK who has a reputation as a provider of Eric Clapton’s secret sound sources! This time, we received a stereo soundboard for the television broadcast of the Nippon Budokan performance on October 27, 1997, during the Japan tour. The footage of this day was heavily promoted and broadcast as a highlight program to commemorate the launch of the satellite channel “DirecTV” that was launched at the time. The master recorded on the soundboard for the broadcast footage is of the best quality to date. All performances of this tour were released in a box set called “ON GUITAR AND VOCALS, ME!”, and of course this day was also included in it, but of course it is a master that has appeared in Japan for the first time, which is different from the master.

　What makes this album so valuable is that it includes Broken Hearted and Pilgrim, which were cut from the original broadcast. For some reason, these two songs were cut from the TV broadcast, but they were properly recorded for the broadcast recording. There are several existing albums that contain the soundboard master of the broadcast footage, but these two songs are not included in any of them (because they were not broadcast). Therefore, you can see that this is the only album that contains these two songs with the highest sound quality. The sound quality of these two songs is truly amazing.

　Let’s take a look back at how the 1997 Japan tour was positioned in Clapton’s career. Clapton’s activities this year were as follows:

・February 26: Attended the 39th Grammy Awards held at Madison Square Garden. Change The World won Record of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, and performed with Babyface to celebrate the award. ・July 3-17: Formed a
fusion unit with Marcus Miller, David Sanborn, Steve Gadd, and Joe Sample under the name Legends and embarked on a short European jazz festival tour.
・September 15: Appeared with other artists at the Concert for Montserrat, a benefit concert held at the Royal Albert Hall in London at the invitation of George Martin to support the victims of the volcanic eruption on Montserrat Island.
・September 25: Appeared with Babyface on his MTV Unplugged show recorded at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, and performed with Babyface.
・October 9th and 10th: Performances in Seoul, Korea
・October 13th to 31st: Japan Tour (13 performances in total) ←★Here★
・December 31st: Hosted and performed in the annual charity concert “New Year’s Eve Dance” in Woking, Surrey, England.　

　From the above, we can see that he did not do a worldwide tour that year, and apart from performing at spot events and short tours with a spot fusion unit, his only regular solo tours were this Japan performance and the Seoul performance just before, which served as a warm-up. This is because Clapton had been working on a memorial album for his late son (released as “PILGRIM” the following year), which he had been working on for six years since 1992, and he was focusing on that. It would have been nice to devote himself to making the album, but it was customary for him to tour Japan “once every two or three years,” and he had already booked for 1997 when he came to Japan in 1995, so it is thought that he went ahead with the tour.

　Due to these circumstances, this year’s Japan tour became “special”. The biggest reason for this was that the songs that were to be included in the album, which was still in production, were performed on this Japan tour earlier than anywhere else in the world. It is rare for Clapton to perform unreleased new songs live, and the only previous Japan tour was in 1977, before the release of “SLOWHAND”. However, when he came to Japan in 1977, the album was already completed and waiting for release, so he performed the finished songs, but in 1997, the album was not yet mixed down. Considering that the sample CDR (the song title was still tentative) called the 4th equalized version of “PILGRIM” distributed to those involved later was produced on December 27, 1997, it could be said that the performance of the songs at the time of this Japan tour was in an unfinished, groping state, so to speak, that Clapton wanted to “complete it almost in this form”. In other words, Clapton wanted his beloved Japanese fans to hear the new songs as soon as possible. That part is from 6. to 8. on Disc 1. What’s interesting is that Broken Hearted was removed from the set list and no longer played on the world tour the following year after the album’s release. It’s unclear why, despite it being a great song, but the live version where you can hear this song in a form close to the album version is only on this Japan tour.

　Furthermore, since this was the first day of the recording of the broadcast footage of the Japanese concert, Clapton’s side also seemed to be in high spirits, and in order to prepare something special, they quickly rehearsed and set up White Room on the day (for some reason, the set list sheet was written as “White’o Room’o” in Latin). So, there was a special charm to hear this song only on this day. And what was even more “special” was the use of the late Joe Sample (Crusaders), who had acted together with Clapton at “Legends” in July and had become kindred spirits, on piano. It is said that Sample readily accepted Clapton’s call, and there was no doubt that his lyrical piano playing gave each song a special flavor. You can understand this by listening to the solo at the beginning of Layla. The highlight is the solo at Old Love. This piano solo, which expresses the quietly swaying folds of the heart that finally transition into one that bursts with passion, is truly exquisite. It is safe to say that it is a masterpiece. Well, the sound quality of this work, which captured such a “special” moment, is of excellent quality, with a crisp stereo sound board and an audience recording matrixed to further enhance the sense of realism. It is a very clear, stereo separation is good, and the sound image is wide. It can be said that this is an excellent recording in which each instrument and Clapton’s vocals are grainy and can be heard clearly. The moderate cheers and applause of the audience create a sense of realism and revive the reality. It can be said that this is the quality that can be released as an official live album. As expected from the master of heavyweight tapers. Please enjoy the definitive version of the 1997 Japan tour, which was “special” in this work.

★The mix, texture, and content are all completely different from the audio of TV broadcasts. It’s so much clearer! The sound is incredibly fresh.

Disc:1 (63:28)
1. Introduction
2. Layla (acoustic)
3. Change The World
4. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out
5. Tears In Heaven
6. Goin’ Down Slow
7. Broken Hearted★
8. Pilgrim★
9. Before You Accuse Me
10. I Shot The Sheriff
11. White Room
12. Wonderful Tonight

Disc:2 (44:50)
1. I’m Tore Down
2. Have You Ever Loved A Woman
3. Cocaine
4. Tearing Us Apart
5. Old Love
6. Sunshine Of Your Love
7. Everyday I Have The Blues