More Signs Point Towards Eric Clapton Touring Retirement

Eric Clapton made big news about a year ago when he told Rolling Stone he was intending to stop touring at Age 70. Clapton turns 69 later this month and gave another sign he really does intend to stop touring (but not playing) sooner rather than later at a Tokyo concert on Friday night.

According to definitive Clapton fansite Where’s Eric?, Slowhand was uncharacteristically chatty during last Friday’s final show of his Japanese Tour. The reason may be because it’s the last show he’ll ever play in the country after 40 years of visiting. A blurb from Clapton in the official program celebrating his 40 years of touring Japan reads, “I may not be able to come back again.” In what would be a fitting farewell, Friday’s show took place at The Budokan -the site of Clapton’s first performance in Japan way back in 1974.

In the 2013 Rolling Stone interview Eric mentions that the traveling is the hardest part, “The struggle is the travel. And the only way you can beat that is by throwing so much money at it that you make a loss. So the idea is I’m taking a leaf out of JJ [Cale]’s book: When I’m 70, I’ll stop. I won’t stop playing or doing one-offs, but I’ll stop touring, I think.”

EC has a brief U.S. Tour scheduled for spring. Where’s Eric? mentions the U.S. jaunt and a European Tour set for June will be Slowhand’s final dates of 2014.

Here’s the setlist from what might turn out to be EC’s last-ever show in Japan: