<i> Rock Concerts Are Past His Bedtime</i>

The four of us--my wife and I and another couple--stand in the hallway at the Clapton concert, sipping our merlots and our Budweisers from plastic cups, checking out the Staples Center crowd.

This town was built for people-watching. Hollywood Bowl. Dodger Stadium. Staples. We go to watch. Me and my three co-voyeurs. “Look over there, honey,” the other wife says to her husband. “I could’ve worn my new nightie.”

Twenty feet away, there’s a woman in a partial dress that could pass for nightwear. She’s ready for bed. Or an Eric Clapton concert. In her mind, the dress code is the same.

Apparently, she’s one of L.A.’s Holly Golightlys, those sweet young things that show up at major events on the arms of older gentlemen, spreading pheromones like magic dust, wreaking havoc on our tender city.

I’m never sure these Holly Golightlys know quite where they are or what they’re doing. They blink a lot. They look confused. And they look spectacular doing it.

“Should we go in?” someone asks.

From the hallway here, we hear the opening band finishing up. I don’t know who they are, but it is painfully loud. Louder than a jet takeoff. Louder than Larry King.

I stuff Staples napkins in my jeans pockets to use later as possible ear plugs, creating a bulge where no bulge should be. A napkin goiter, right on my hip.

“I’m ready,” I say.

“Let’s go in,” my wife says.

And into Staples we go, through Aisle 15 and down the steps. Down, not up. I’ve never been on the Staples floor before. There must be some mistake.

“Hey, look who’s here,” my wife says.

We run into people we know--Tina and Steve, Nancy and J.P.--friends from school or the neighborhood.

It’s less like a rock concert than a giant PTA meeting, say, at Beverly Hills High School, where the parents are well-dressed and a little gray around the edges. We’re at a rock concert, but everyone is wearing collared shirts.

Even Clapton.

At about 9, the lights dim and he strolls out on stage in his collared shirt and baggy pants, all cotton and casual, like veteran rock stars are.

He sits and relaxes. Evidently, Clapton’s face isn’t awake yet. But his fingers are. Soon, Eric Clapton’s left hand is reading his guitar neck like it’s Braille.

And the concert is as wonderful as you’d expect, but one of those times--a late Friday time--when you’re yawning and you know you shouldn’t be yawning, it’s just that you’ve been running around all week and you didn’t eat lunch and your back hurts a little. You’re at this great event, but you’re yawning. Eyelids weigh about 50 pounds. Heck, it’s almost 9:30. Heck, you’re almost 45.

“You OK?” my wife asks.

“Never better.”

“But you keep yawning,” she says.

I explain to her that, in fact, I’m screaming except nothing’s coming out. I save energy that way. With silent screams.

“You should try it,” I say.

“No thanks,” she says.

But I’m not the only one. The entire crowd seems a little drowsy. We sit in our padded seats, enjoying the acoustic part of the program.

Fortunately, the drowsiness doesn’t last long. As Clapton comes alive, so do we.

“ Bell bottom blues ...,” he sings.

“This is the song,” our friend Nancy reminds us, “about breaking up George Harrison’s marriage.”

“Really?” I say, not much for gossip.

In fact, Clapton has several songs about Harrison’s wife, including “Layla.” Big-eyed Patti Boyd, of course, was Layla.

Imagine that, stealing one of the Beatles’ wives? My guess is that Harrison was probably yawning through concerts, faking screams.

“You OK?” I ask my wife.

“Fine,” she says in her Clapton trance.

Off to our right, I notice a security person talking to some hippie type--possibly America’s last--who insists on standing up near his $200 seat.

He gestures passionately, as hippies are wont to do, about his right to dance near the aisle at rock concerts. Eventually, a bigger security guy comes along and escorts him to the hallway for a chat.

“Sir, it’s 2001,” the security guy is probably saying. “Now please sit.”

Up on Staples’ big screens, meanwhile, they are showing various shots of the show.

They cut to close-ups of Clapton singing, then shots of Billy Preston on keyboards.

At one point, they cut to a nice-looking middle-aged couple in the crowd. The man, recognizing an opportunity when he sees it, leans over and kisses the woman for all the audience to see. All over the stadium, women’s hearts melt.

“What a sap,” I tell my buddy.

“He’s just trying to make us look bad,” my buddy says.

“Like we need any help.”

I’m thinking that maybe this guy was thinking about the George Harrison incident and wanted a little insurance. Every woman I’ve ever known is sweet on Eric Clapton. Still, this big-screen kiss was too much. Grandstanding, really.

“Wasn’t that nice,” my wife says.

“Completely,” I say.

In the final hour, the concert begins to feel like a Clapton retirement party. Romantic. Wistful. Nostalgic. All the emotions I disdain.

So I begin daydreaming about what it would be like to take on Sixers guard Alan Iverson right here on the Staples floor, ripping him to shreds with my first stutter step, then humiliating him with my head fake and my chin wobble, which has fooled almost every basketball opponent since the third grade.

Stutter step. Head fake. Chin wobble. Score.

I lean back and smile, savoring my victory. As Eric Clapton leans into “Layla” for the last time, the Staples crowd roars.

“This is great, isn’t it?” my wife asks.

Score.

*

Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.