1. Concert & Torrent Info
(1) Artist: Eric Clapton and his friends
(2) Date: April 22nd 2023
(3) Venue: Budokan Arena, Tokyo Japan
(4) Disc Title : Lick by Lick (T&J-TWOSP-198-200)
(5) The Production Team:
The Wall of Sound Project (the Box Lunch Project)
a Tapers: Tom & Jerry
b. Sound Editor: The Naniwa Hot Brothers
c. Art Work Designer: Mickey Jaggar
(6) Artwork included.
2. Recording + Remastering Info
MK4>Nbox+>Sony D100(24bit98kHz, line-in, Rec Level 5.5)>PC
Wav Files (16bit44kHz)>FLAC Tiles
Sound Forge Ver.11, RX6 Audio Editor and Traders Little Helper used for the post production.
3. Quality;
Sound-wise Excellent & Performance-wise pretty good
PLAY IT LOUD!!!!

4.Set List /Track List
00. Pre Show Announcement
01.Blue Rainbow
02.Pretending
03.Key to the Highway(Charles Segar cover)
04.I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man(Willie Dixon cover)
05.I Shot the Sheriff(The Wailers cover)
06.Kind Hearted Woman Blues(Robert Johnson cover)
07.Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out(Jimmy Cox cover)
08.Call Me the Breeze(J.J. Cale cover)
09.Sam Hall([traditional] cover)
10.Tears in Heaven
11.Badge(Cream song)
12.Wonderful Tonight
13.Cross Road Blues(Robert Johnson cover)
14.Little Queen of Spades(Robert Johnson cover)
15.Cocaine(J.J. Cale cover)
16.High Time We Went(Joe Cocker cover)
17.Nathan's Otsukaresama
18.After Show Announcement

5. Taper’s memo
I recorded the whole show from a not great but decent floor seat which was not close to the stage but not too far and still manageable-distant from the stage for a decent recording. Off the allied-speaker-seats, I had to adjust the mics towards the sound sources frequently, which really drove me nuts among the sitting crowd. But it was really worthy of trying because I somewhat managed to capture the music in relatively well-balanced manner. Budokan is not an ideal place for concert. The house-acoustics make the vocals more echoing from the stand or the way back in the floor. The guitars sound either hollow or screeching to my not professionally-trained ears. Unless taped from the sweet sound spot at this venue, I would have kept on bitching about this. The MK4s and Nbox plus combo is the perfect set-up for this venue. This little bit of pumping in the gain really did matter from where I taped.

And in the end I was fully satisfied with this recording and the show in general.
Even though Eric dropped one song off his usual regular-set-list, the show was pretty memorable just a few weeks before the strict Covid-related regulations were lifted. We all crawled out of the cave and realized how much we have missed the live events such as Eric Clapton show. Clapton seems to be pretty happy in seemingly far better shaped than when he came to Japan for the previous two Japan tours in 2019 and 2016. His performance were obviously more polished with the less frequent hiccups. He played his guitar more aggressively with more emotional vocals. Tonight show was far far better than the previous shows I recorded back in 2016. I will check more shows of his next Japan tour 202X.

Before the show, I checked up on several bootleg shops in Shinjuk with a friend of mine and bought several bootleg CDs for the first time in more than a decade. Many moons ago the bootleg shops were everywhere in that district but now only a handful remains. A friend of mine asked for a ‘94 Filmore show and were blown away by this not helpful shop clerk. My friend gave up on him and I bought a few titles instead. I found it not condemning but amusing to find out that everything still remains the same.

Images for all shows as well as full size images for this show.

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