Eric Clapton: Japan, I won't be back

Eric Clapton just may be serious about the whole retirement thing.

On Friday, Clapton played his final show of the current Japan tour at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. The program for the show included a letter to the fans from Eric where he stated "I may not be able to come back again. … I've been coming here for forty years, before some of you were born. It's the best place I've ever played. Thank you for having me."

Clapton told Rolling Stone last year that "When I'm 70, I'll stop. I won't stop playing or doing one-offs, but I'll stop touring, I think."

For his final stop in Japan, Clapton covered his entire career, going back to Cream for Crossroads, hitting on four songs from Derek & the Dominos' Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs and touching on his later blues albums including From the Cradle and Me and Mr. Johnson.

Paul Carrack, who has been touring with Clapton since last year, contributed on three songs including his own hit from his days with Ace, How Long, and the encore, a cover of Joe Cocker's High Time We Went.

The set list:

Main Set
Pretending (from Journeyman, 1989)
Key To The Highway (from Derek & the Dominos' Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, 1970)
Tell The Truth (from Derek & the Dominos' Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, 1970)
Hoochie Coochie Man (from From the Cradle, 1994)
Honest Man (sung by Paul Carrack) (Little Feat cover)
Wonderful Tonight (from Slowhand, 1977)
I Shot The Sheriff (from 461 Ocean Boulevard, 1974)
Driftin' (from From the Cradle, 1994)
Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out (from Derek & the Dominos' Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, 1970)
Alabama Woman (Leroy Carr cover)
Layla (from Derek & the Dominos' Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, 1970 & Unplugged, 1992)
Tears In Heaven (from the soundtrack to Rush, 1991)
How Long (sung by Paul Carrack) (Ace cover)
Before You Accuse Me (from Journeyman, 1989 & Unplugged, 1992)
Crossroads (from Cream's Wheels of Fire, 1968)
Little Queen Of Spades (from Me and Mr. Johnson, 2004)
Cocaine (from Slowhand, 1977)

Encore
High Time We Went (sung by Paul Carrack) (Joe Cocker cover)

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