Eric Clapton - Rainbow Theatre, London, Britain, 1-13-1973, Early Show

First off, I want to make clear that Eric Clapton performed two concerts in one day, January 13, 1973, at the Rainbow Theatre in London. The late show was released as the album "Eric Clapton's Rainbow Concert" later in 1973. Then an expanded version of that was released in 1995. But what I'm posting here is the early show, in soundboard quality that sounds just as good as the official album. So you may want to have this, even if you have the late show.

These two concerts were pivotal for Clapton's music career and his life in general, so a little history in needed. He fell into a bad heroin addiction after his classic album "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs" was released in 1970. He didn't play in concert or release any new music in 1971 or 1972, with the exception of participating in the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971. Pete Townshend of the Who heard of Clapton's addition problem, and even though Townshend didn't know Clapton that well, he knew Clapton was a major music talent and he wanted to help him recover from his addition and get back on his feet. Townshend helped gather a band of excellent musicians just for these two shows. Many in the band were current or former members of Traffic, such as Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Rick Grech, and Rebop Kwaku Baah. But Townshend and Ronnie Wood also played guitar. 

This band practiced for ten days, and put on a good show. Clapton was still addicted to heroin at the time, but he sang and played lead guitar surprisingly well, considering his condition. More importantly, the concerts did give him a kick in the pants. He merely had been hanging around his house, watching TV and getting high, but this got him back into music. He quit heroin over the course of the next year, in part due to working on a farm to get back in shape. Then he released the album "461 Ocean Boulevard" in 1974, which was a big success and lead to a long and successful solo career. He later said that seeing the faith that Townshend and the other musicians had in him gave him the confidence to overcome him addiction.

Unfortunately, Townshend didn't leave much of a musical mark in the concerts. He didn't sing any songs, and it seems he only stuck to playing rhythm guitar. However, he seemed to have been the band leader, as well as the emcee, doing most of the talking between songs. Steve Winwood though, had a larger musical role. Clapton sang nearly all the songs, but Winwood sang lead on "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out," Presence of the Lord," and the Traffic song "Pearly Queen." So the concert was a bit like a reunion of Blind Faith, the 1969 band led by Clapton and Winwood. However, since Clapton hadn't released any new music since 1970, most of the songs were from the "Layla" album and Clapton's 1970 solo album "Eric Clapton."

As far as the recording goes, this is another bootleg I found that had been improved by the person nicknamed Captain Acid. I then made more changes to his version. I boosted the volume of the lead vocals for all the songs. But I especially boosted the vocals for the talking bits between songs, which were really low. I also cut out some guitar tuning and other dead air between songs.

Note that not all of the songs performed here are officially unreleased. The 1995 version of the official album contains 14 songs. Ten of them are from the late show, and four are from the early show. Two of those from the early show, "After Midnight" and "Bell Bottom Blues," were included because they were only done in the early show. Two others, "Layla" and "Little Wing," were played in both shows, but for some reason the early show versions were chosen. By the way, I read the liner notes to the 1995 version, and it weirdly implies there was only one concert. So I had to dig pretty deep to find which songs were from which show.

This concert is an hour and 30 minutes long.

01 talk (Eric Clapton)
02 Layla (Eric Clapton)
03 Badge (Eric Clapton)
04 Blues Power (Eric Clapton)
05 talk (Eric Clapton)
06 Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (Eric Clapton)
07 Roll It Over (Eric Clapton)
08 Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad (Eric Clapton)
09 talk (Eric Clapton)
10 Little Wing (Eric Clapton)
11 talk (Eric Clapton)
12 Bottle of Red Wine (Eric Clapton)
13 After Midnight (Eric Clapton)
14 Bell Bottom Blues (Eric Clapton)
15 talk (Eric Clapton)
16 Presence of the Lord (Eric Clapton)
17 Tell the Truth (Eric Clapton)
18 talk (Eric Clapton)
19 Pearly Queen (Eric Clapton)
20 Let It Rain (Eric Clapton)
21 Crossroads (Eric Clapton)

https://www.imagenetz.de/dgP7h

The cover photo comes from one of these two Rainbow shows, but I'm not sure which one. From right to left, that's Ronnie Wood, Eric Clapton, Rick Grech, and Pete Townshend. Grech and Townshend were further to the side, but I used Photoshop to move them closer to Clapton.