I photographed a star (as OT as it gets but some may enjoy this)

During a tour in the 1980s, Eric Clapton played three consecutive nights at
Seattle's Paramount Theater. I had camped out for tickets the night before
they went on sale and it paid off. . .first in line netted me front row
seats on all three nights.

Front row is great. Forget what you may have heard about "bad acoustics"
that close. They were good enough and even if they had not been, there I
was just 30 or so feet away from Eric (my friend and I had seats just to the
right of center).

I waved at Eric a couple of times on the first night when I caught his eye
scanning those seated in front of him. The second night, when I caught him
scanning the first few rows before him, I waved again. This time he gave me
a brief smile as if to acknowledge that he remembered me from the previous
night.

On night number three I managed to sneak a small 35mm camera inside (no
flash attachment). When the time came that he once again was checking out
the crowd, this time his eyes went immediately to where I was seated. I
think he expected me -- having seen me in the same location the previous two
nights. I was ready. I waved again with my left hand and quickly held up
the little camera which was nestled in my lap with my right hand. . .just
high enough for him to see it. To my surprise, he smiled again but this
time with just the slightest, almost undiscernable, nod of his head. Easing
his way over a few feet to stand almost directly in front of me, he
unleashed one of the most fiery and convoluted guitar solos that one can
imagine. Head back, eyes closed, almost unconsciously tapping into that
guitar universe where only he can go, the notes conceived in his mind and
delivered through his fingers were riveting. I raised the camera and got
off a quick exposure while he was bathed in blue light. The solo continued
and I caught him "sneaking" a look at me to as if to see if I was
photographing him and then he closed his eyes and lost himself again. I
snapped a couple of other pictures.

Coming out of his tour de force, he once again "regained consciousness," and
looked directly at me. I nodded my head and he knew I had my pictures.

No one caught me. I'm sure that only Eric, myself, and my friend knew what
had transpired. Twenty years later, I still have the one photo that really
turned out well.

What a night. . .what a star.

--
Martin
To reply remove "ilikestars" from my email address

Yup. OT, but very cool! Wish I coulda been there. It's nice when a
big name entertainer does something like that for a fan!
Marty

Yep, I'd say it's about as OT as it gets. But I know at least one
reader enjoyed it -- me.

Mike Simmons

On Fri, 07 Nov 2003 17:58:54 GMT, "Starstuffed"
wrote:

During a tour in the 1980s, Eric Clapton played three consecutive nights at
Seattle's Paramount Theater. I had camped out for tickets the night before
they went on sale and it paid off. . .first in line netted me front row
seats on all three nights.

OT perhaps, but a helluva better use of OT bandwidth than that Min
crapola!

That show wouldn't by any chance have been the "Behind the Sun" tour,
would it? I'd only just "discovered" Clapton before that tour, and got
a pretty good seat at the Worcester Centrum. Of course I was blown out
of the water. At one point he played a tune that I was certain must
have been one of those ageless classics of his, because as he teased
out those amazing feelings from the guitar, the experience was one of
novelty and ageless familiarity all at once. I was just moved to
tears. Later on I found out this was a brand new song, "Same Old
blues" from the new album, and of course I'd never heard it before. It
is still my favorite Clapton tune, period.

Two nights later I was back to hear the show, this time in Providence.
Those two shows rank in the top three rock concerts I've ever been
to. The other was front row center for Pretenders and Simple Minds...

Okay, back to Min now I guess... ;-)
-leor

Leor Zolman
BD Software

www.bdsoft.com
C++ users: Download BD Software's free STL Error Message
Decryptor at: www.bdsoft.com/tools/stlfilt.html

On 11/08/03 02:58 +0900, Starstuffed wrote:

[ snip ]

Coming out of his tour de force, he once again "regained consciousness," and
looked directly at me. I nodded my head and he knew I had my pictures.

Man. Great story. If you've had those scanned, I'd love to see them.

Cheers,

trane
--
//------------------------------------------------------------
// Trane Francks Tokyo, Japan
// Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
// http://mp3.com/trane_francks/

On Sun, 09 Nov 2003 00:02:04 +0900, Trane Francks
wrote:

On 11/08/03 02:58 +0900, Starstuffed wrote:

[ snip ]

Coming out of his tour de force, he once again "regained consciousness," and
looked directly at me. I nodded my head and he knew I had my pictures.

Man. Great story. If you've had those scanned, I'd love to see them.

Cheers,

trane

Yeah! Post those pics somewhere. BTW, I did three nights when Cream
hit Winterland too!

Al Hall