Eric Clapton concert at the Budokan

We were fortunate to get tickets to see Eric Clapton and his band Thursday night at the Budokan in Tokyo.
We must say Slowhand can still lay it down. They played about 20 songs including,I shot the Sheriff, Cocaine, Crossroads, Why does love, Wonderful tonight, of course Layla(heavy version) and several of his longer bluesy songs that I cant name.
The Budokan has been the host to many famous groups over the years and is a cool place to see a show. It is located in Kudanshita which is a really nice area of central Tokyo. It is actually a Judo arena, and only holds about 10,000, people, so all of the seats are close to the stage.
The Japanese fans can be pretty strange to experience a concert with though. The place was packed, but like everything else here in Japan with the exception of baseball and soccer they are a very very subdued crowd, almost afraid to clap between songs, let alone, dance around, scream, party excessively, or any of the other crazy shit you may see at concerts in the states. As soon as the show starts the beer and food stands close down for the night. At times it seemed like what I would guess an opera crowd would be like, with the crowd only becoming remotely excited at a few of the bands more popular tunes. We had the same experience with The Who concert a couple of months back at Saitama Super Arena. But, i guess if the arenas are full the bands don't mind, and they give them what they came for. Clapton is very popular in Japan and he does like 8 shows between Tokyo and Osaka.
Anyhow sorry that we only have the one lame dark photo of the entrance to the Budokan as we were getting our drink on before the show and arrived at the arena just in time for the first song.