Feeling Blue, but Stopping the Tears

No fewer than three of the songs in Eric Clapton’s Staples Center concert Friday had the word “tears” in the title, a statistic that underscores the legendary musician’s evolution from ‘60s rock-guitar deity to the VH1 generation’s patron saint of grief and stiff-upper-lip carrying on.

Actually, the best music from each of his incarnations has always had a vein of powerful sorrow, fed by personal demons and tragic losses. That’s Clapton’s most meaningful link to his beloved blues, and even some of his songs that aren’t blues in form, such as “Layla,” bear this mark.

But Clapton doesn’t have the inclination to turn his concerts into Bergman movies, and on the first of his two nights at Staples, he pushed the music away from emotional extremes and into a more superficial entertainment.

Everything about this dignified rock patriarch bespeaks care and commitment, so this is probably not a lazy choice. His well-known self-effacement might be part of it, but he could well be saying, “I’ve been through the wringer; there’s no reason to put you through it, too. Let’s just jam for a while.”

But as if to show what he was sparing, Clapton turned the ending of his own bleak blues, “River of Tears,” into a fearsome image of anguish, burning guitar runs into his band’s lurching stops and starts in a cathartic excavation of raw pain.

It was a jaw-dropping moment, but Clapton immediately reentered the comfort zone with the light R&B; of his version of St. Louis Jimmy Oden’s “Going Down Slow,” as if that level were too much to sustain.

Even when the tempos picked up and the nostalgia meter was in the red, the performance could seem more dutiful than inspired. Those moments brought to mind Clapton’s recent statement that this might be his last tour.

Earnest, unaffected, not given to small talk--any talk, really--he’s a total stranger to flashiness and the on-your-feet aspect of arena rock. For that he had his organist, veteran R&B; showboat Billy Preston, open the encores with his still-irresistible “Will It Go Round in Circles.”

If it was more recital than rally, the concert still provided the pleasures of a top-level band (drummer Steve Gadd, guitarist Andy Fairweather Low, keyboardist David Sancious, bassist Nathan East and Preston) playing with empathy. It didn’t, however, reflect well on Clapton’s current creative vitality--he recently released his first album of new material in three years, but played only one of its original songs, an instrumental.

In the 40-minute acoustic set that opened the show and the plugged-in portion that followed, the nicest surprise was Clapton’s singing. His music is in his guitar, not in his thick, wobbly voice, but on stage he pushed it into a clearer, firmer middle range, where it took on an everyman soulfulness.

In the end, Clapton came full circle, sitting with an acoustic guitar. His final song wasn’t a blues or a Cream classic or a Derek & the Dominos hit, but a Hollywood standard. It’s a long way from a river of tears to “Over the Rainbow,” but the distance made his closing words--”Why oh why can’t I?”--a poignant finishing touch.