By Your Side (Tricone-009/010)
Rainbow Hall, Nagoya, Japan – December 10th, 1990
Disc 1: Introduction, Pretending, No Alibis, Running On Faith, I Shot The Sheriff, White Room, Can’t Find My Way Home, Bad Love, Before You Accuse Me, Old Love
Disc 2: Badge, Wonderful Tonight, member introduction, Cocaine, A Remark You Made, Layla, Boom Boom, Crossroads, Sunshine Of Your Love
By Your Side is Tricone’s third Eric Clapton release from his visit to Japan during the Journeyman tour, following Journey’s End (Tricone-001/002) and Just An Illusion (Tricone-005/006). The tape is a very good to almost excellent stereo cassette audience recording taped very close to the stage capturing a lot of detail.
The bottom end is a bit thin although the manufacturers might have brought it out a bit more than the common tape. There is a compressed feeling to the sound, and there are two cuts in the tape. The first is a tape flip at 4:03 in “Old Love” and the second is during the final encore “Sunshine Of Your Love” eliminating the end the of the song.
Although this tape has been circulating for many years this is the first commercial release of the tape on silver disc. The label claims to use the master cassette which is debatable. It does however sound very nice and listenable, one of the better documents from this short tour.
Clapton’s appearance in the Rainbow Hall in Nagoya is ten days after the Budokan show on Just An Illusion. The Tokyo show was very stiff but this one is a definite improvement. It begins with the orchestral “Layla” prelude before a great version of “Pretending” and is Clapton taking the lead.
“I Shot The Sheriff” has a very lyrical guitar solo. Bassist Nathan East sings lead vocal on “Can’t Find My Way Home” and includes a bass solo in the middle. Clapton’s female vocalists sang this song in the past and why East sings the song and not Katie Kissoon is a mystery.
“Bad Love” hits a good groove and “Before You Accuse Me” is an excuse for a lot of fun on stage with the song reaching eight minutes. The Jaco Pastorius tribute “A Remark You Made” is a ninety second intro to the final number “Layla”.
After several minutes of cheering, all captured on tape, they play a bit of John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom” as an introduction to “Crossroads”. Overall this is a nice document from a great show and is recommended.
