In the past few months, Eric Clapton has ventured his anger over the British corona policy several times together with the passionate crosshead Van Morrison. Together, the two railed against "police state arbitrariness" in songs and even spoke of "slavery". As a high-risk patient who has suffered from peripheral neuropathy, a chronic nerve disease, since 2006, Clapton should of course have been warned about the possible side effects of a corona vaccination. Nevertheless, he was surprised by his violent vaccination reaction: "I should never have gone near a needle." Reason enough for him to call on his fans not to be vaccinated.
Clapton quickly found himself in the camp of conspiracy theorists and thus attracted a lot of criticism, and not just on social media.
His guitar colleague Brian May from Queen wrote to him unabashedly in his studbook: "In my opinion, anti-vaccination opponents are crazy."
"I was marginalized, I could feel that everywhere." No wonder, the hobby virologist, who denounces the Covid 19 vaccination campaign as mere "propaganda" without any scientific expertise, suggests a meaningful comparison: Would you listen to a doctor? who never had guitar lessons and now wants to explain to you how to play “Layla”?
Full concerts despite 3G and an album that even critics praise
His fear of "never being able to play the guitar again" due to vaccination side effects proved to be unfounded: During the eight concerts in early September, despite his full-bodied promise not to appear in front of an audience that was "discriminated against by vaccination", he played more strictly in sold out houses 3-G control. After all, he confronted the audience with his latest maverick hymn “This Has Gotta Stop”: “This has to stop, enough is enough. I can't stand this bullshit any longer. ”That the lockdown phase in England had something positive for Clapton is now demonstrated by his new album“ The Lady In The Balcony ”, with which he could rehabilitate himself as a serious artist with his critics.
After all shows in London's Royal Albert Hall were canceled due to the corona epidemic in February 2021, the guitarist called his band together in the lonely Cowdray House in West Sussex. Without an audience, he undertook a foray through his rich song catalog with primarily acoustic instruments. It quickly becomes clear that behind the warm, intimate living room atmosphere lurks a quiet melancholy that pervades the entire album like a pale trail of light. It sounds as if its originator wanders through its own history, examining old treasures, polishing a musical find here, putting together an almost forgotten song again. This melancholy mood also takes into account Clapton's singing, which sounds more and more bluesy with age. What the voice has lost in volume today,it makes up for it with an incidental roughness. It almost seems as if he was lost in his own texts, listening to their biographically often painful echoes.