I Am Yours (ARMS 63/64 PR)
Venue: Hallam FM Arena, Sheffield, UK – May 12, 2006
Setlist:
Disc1: Pretending – So Tired – Got To Get Better – Lost & Found – I Shot The Sheriff – Anyday – Back Home – I Am Yours – Nobody Knows You – Milkcow Blues – Running On Faith
Disc2: After Midnight – Little Queen Of Spades – Everybody Oughta Make A Change – Motherless Children – Wonderful Tonight – Layla – Cocaine – Crossroads
Review: ARMS treat us to an excellent audience recording of one of the first shows of EC’s 2006 /07 World Tour. This gig in Sheffield takes place right one week after EC officially launched it on 5 May in France.
Nice feeling to hear EC play “Pretending” again after all these years – it just brings so good memories to me. ( I remember my dad buying the Journeyman record for me – I guess the guy at the Record Store never thought that record was not for my dad but for his 16yo son. Oh well…) “So Tired” sounds good live and is a great introduction to “Got To Get Better”, which will not last for its original 13 minutes live but just 7 instead…. but what a 7 minutes!! EC takes the lead for the first part of the song with a nice solo and then we get Doyle Bramhall II and Derek Trucks delivering great guitar works for the second and final part of this song. If you ask me, my vote goes to Doyle, but this is just my personal opinion. “Lost And Found” comes next – a blues number written by DBII which will let EC show his abilities with this type of music. “Sheriff” follows featuring a very nicely constructed outro. “Anyday” starts without announcement as if it was a song EC plays live once and again!! Derek concentrates on guitar and EC shares the vocals with Doyle on this great rendition of this great classic. Whoever is responsible for making EC play this live, THANK YOU! This is the last electric number of the first part of the show. EC switches now to acoustic to play “Back Home”, “I Am Yours”, “Nobody Knows You”, “Milkcow Blues” and “Running On Faith”. The sound on this acoustic numbers is not as good as it is on the electric ones and albeit still good, I’d recommend listening to them at night when silence reigns supreme.
With EC electric again first song we get is “After Midnight” on its 1970 version. EC plays lead on the first half of the song and Derek and Doyle play lead on the second half with EC playing lead again just before “After Midnight” becomes “Little Queen Of Spades”, a superb opportunity for all the band members to show off. Then we seem to have been taken back to 1985 when “Everybody Oughta Make A Change” followed by “Motherless Children” start playing. What a treat to see EC digging out part of his 45+ year catalogue! If you were wondering where the classic Clapton songs were, here they are. A four minute version of “Wonderful Tonight” followed by a **superb** “Layla” and a great rendition of “Cocaine” – I even liked Tim carmon’s solo!! – were saved for the last part of the show. Finally, the encore only sees the performance of “Crossroads”.
In short, this is a fantastic recording featuring EC in great form that deserves to be in any serious collector’s shelves.
