Slowhand comes to St Louie

We maintain a bucket list of musicians and concert performances we’d like to see. It’s an unwritten list. Unfortunately, because we’re big fans of the 60’s and 70’s, the list is getting shorter-and not always in a good way.

That’s why when Eric Clapton scheduled a few tour dates, I jumped at the tickets-to hell with the additional fees, charges, and taxes. He’s been on my list for years and while he does shows in England, he seems to only do festivals in the States. As luck would have it, he was coming to St Louis, only a 2 1/2 hour drive.

We made this a one-day event. We would drive down during the day, attend the show then stay overnight and drive back the next morning. We reserved a hotel in Edwardsville, IL, just 20 minutes from the arena.

We checked in and looked for a place to eat. We picked a restaurant called The Wooden Nickel Pub and Grill in Glen Carbon, IL. It was 5:00 PM on a Tuesday and when we walked in, it was packed. Turns out it was Taco Tuesday. Applying our rules about restaurants, busy at 5:00 on a Tuesday means a good choice so we stuck it out.

We didn’t have to wait very long, we just pulled up to the bar. We had excellent service and a very short wait for food. We had patty melt and grilled chicken sandwich along with fries and chips. The food was great.

The Enterprise Arena is downtown St Louis is in the same area as Busch Stadium so getting in and finding parking was pretty easy, especially since the Cardinals had an away game. We parked and got checked in through security. We had ok-not-great seats in the upper bowl. Hey it’s about being there, right?

As a rule, we don’t do in-depth show reviews here. No detailed song-by-song discussions, just a general overview and report.

Jimmie Vaughn opened for Clapton. Jimmie (brother of Stevie Ray) was ok. Heavy blues. His band was decent but not really who we came to see.

Finally, at 9:00, Clapton took the stage with his band. And I will tell you, it was a great band. With the likes of Paul Carrack and Nathan East it sounded tight, even in an building built for hockey. But the band member that stole the show for me was Chris Stainton on the keyboard. I was not familiar with him, I had to look him up. Oh my goodness, when he cut loose on a solo, it brought the house down.

Both Mary and I agreed that we would have liked a more jukebox type of concert-playing all his hit and popular songs. He did play some but played a lot of lesser known songs. But hey, he’s Eric Clapton, he can play what he wants! And he did play – for an hour and forty five minutes! The show was fun and we’re glad we went, even though we didn’t get back to hotel until well past our bedtime.

The next morning, we ate some breakfast at the hotel. Meals that never fail to disappoint. So our first stop was a coffee shop. On the way out of town we found Goshen Coffee in Edwardsville, IL.

We ordered the house medium roast which they called Old School. If I understand the explantion of the origin, it is a blend from Brazil. Very unique but it tasted great! Worth the stop.

Less than two hours and we were home planning our last two concert trips of the year. We’ll tell you all about them here.