Terminal Port (Tricone 069/070)
Yokohama Arena, Yokohama, Japan – December 13th, 1990
Disc 1 (49:37): Opening, Pretending, No Alibis, Running On Faith, I Shot The Sheriff, White Room, Can’t Find My Way Home, Bad Love
Disc 2 (75:48): Before You Accuse Me, Old Love, Badge, Wonderful Tonight, Band Introduction, Cocaine, Auld Lang Syne / A Remark You Made, Layla, Crossroads, Sunshine Of Your Love
Eric Clapton’s Journeyman tour in 1990, when he returned to playing the blues and to being a guitar hero, ended with seven days of pleasure in Japan ending on December 13th in Yokohama in Kanagawa.
Yokohama has had prior silver pressings including Journey’s End (Tricone 001/002), discs seven and eight of Seven Nights of Pleasure (Mid Valley 406-413) (along with a DVD with amateur footage of this show in very poor quality) and Auld Lang Syne – His Alibi For The Last Night (Tarantura TCDED-54-1, 2) released in late 2010.
Terminal Port is an excellent audience recording of the entire show. It doesn’t have the presence as the tape used on the Tarantura, but it is still very sharp, clear, and enjoyable and a viable alternative to hearing this show.
The band come onstage while the orchestral arrangement of “Layla” is playing and start with “Pretending,” the first single from Journeyman.
Recognizing this as not only the final show in Japan but of the year, Clapton thanks the entire band, staff, and promoters by first name before “No Alibis” and “Running On Faith.” In the previous couple years he started off with Cream songs and other oldies, but this is a new era and he plays three new songs before the first oldie “I Shot The Sheriff.”
“Can’t Find My Way Home” is introduced as a song by Blind Faith and is a show case for Nathan East, not only for his vocals but for the melody bass solo in the middle. “Old Love” fills in for “Same Old Blues” as the long improvisational showcase of the evening. Reaching over thirteen minutes, Clapton plays several variations of the electric blues and East has the second, more dark, bass solo of the set.
By the end of the set they play an instrumental version of “Auld Lang Syne,” dominated by keyboards, segueing into Jaco Pastorius’ “A Remark You Made” which serves as an introduction to “Layla.”
“Crossroads,” the set opener for the preceding three years, is the first encore and is followed by “Sunshine Of Your Love,” the second encore for the same period of time. Steve Ferrone has a conventional drum solo in the middle which serves as a good showcase for him, but isn’t nearly as entertaining as Ray Cooper’s when he was with the band earlier in the year.
Yokohama is a very nice and energetic show worth having in the collection. Whenever Clapton is in a good mood he keeps the band loose. Terminal Port is a very nice release and a great way to obtain this show.
