Majoring in music appreciation

It's two completely different sides of the musical spectrum. On the one hand, the 70th birthday celebrations for Eric Clapton at Madison Square Garden. And on the other, the reigning Tony Award-winning musical "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder."

Clapton kicked off the weekend at Madison Square Garden. He rolls through the setlist with some familiar bluesy favorites, such as "Key to the Highway" and "Hoochie Coochie Man." The first of the evening's guests, John Mayer, joins for "Pretending," and although his performance is entirely perfunctory, the rest of E.C.'s assemble still makes it a winner.

For a while the highlight is "Driftin'," dedicated to Ben E. King (who had passed away the previous day and who Eric once said wrote the most beautiful love song ever written in "Stand by Me.") This is delivered during the sit-down acoustic portion of the evening and every note sounds like it is driftin' up to the fallen King.

For this show, we had front-row seats ... of the third section from the stage. But for me, it was great, because no one was standing in my way preventing me from seeing the performers and I also got to move around to the music. It took about three or four songs for me to loosen the knots in my neck, but I really started to get into a solid hippie, trippy vibe around "Can't Find My Way Home." It was great to have uber-bassist Nathan East back with E.C. again in general, but particularly on this song.

And speaking of people who were back, the highlight of the first night was, without a doubt, Derek Trucks and Doyle Bramhall II joining Clapton and crew for "Let It Rain." One of the greatest musical regrets I harbor is missing the tour in which Derek and Doyle backed up E.C., prodding him to heights he hadn't reached for a while on material he had long since packed away. So for the few minutes we got of "Let It Rain," I was in high heaven.

Less successfully, Jimmie Vaughan had come out a few songs before to play "Before You Accuse Me," and while it was great to see him, the collaboration just didn't soar the same way. Jimmie's solo was a little stilted, and E.C., being the reflective mirror he tends to be, almost echoed the same thing back.

At a very early point in the evening, Mark and I started recognizing songs before they fully kicked in. With "Can't Find My Way Home," the crowd sort of doesn't get it until the full band kicks into gear, while both of us can recognize it in a couple of bass notes. "I Shot the Sheriff" meanders around for a while until the riff that signals the start brings most of the arena into the fold. I think two or three minutes prior to that point, I yelled, "SPOILER ALERT! It's 'I Shot the Sheriff'!"

That song, by the way, is one I never listen to home, but hang on every note during a live show. As opposed to say "Wonderful Tonight," which has become my group's signal to call a friend not at the show. Mainly it's a "Network Time Killer," as they used to say on David Letterman's "Late Night" show. I took the joke one step further and called my friend, Susan, who was actually at the same show and sitting closer at the stage. The things we do to make ourselves laugh.

One of the biggest surprises was "Tears in Heaven." It's Eric's biggest "hit" of all time, but he stopped playing it for a long while. I was pretty peeved to see people heading to the bathroom during it. When it first debuted in concert in the early '90s, well, it was like everyone in the arena held their breath, knowing that the song was for his son, Conor, who had died tragically at 4 1/2 years old. They cheered in support after every verse, every chorus. Now, it was just another song. That took some of the air out of my tires.

I'm not sure playing everyone's favorite "Layla" acoustically (as on the multi-platinum "Unplugged" album) was the best way to mark the milestone birthday, for we all kinda wanted to rock out, but it was nicely done. The same could be said for keyboardist Paul Carrack's version of "You Are So Beautiful." And though we pleaded for a change in the slow blues number, it still was "Little Queen of Spades," which offers Clapton and crew the chance to solo so beautifully, but has lost its zing from being in the rotation for a few years now.

The whole show had a very laidback vibe, which irked some of my friends, but which I rather enjoyed as just a way to chill out and rid myself of earthly concerns. And so it was pretty easy for me to jam my way through "Crossroads" and "Cocaine" to the encore of "High Time We Went," with all the guest stars coming back for one more solo in celebration of Clapton.

While I would hardly consider this a true retrospective a career that has gone so many places, the man throws a nice party.

Thanks to the Rangers' continuing playoff run (insert every expletive you can think of here, both for me as a Devils fan and just one of the people whose schedule was upended), the second show was changed to Sunday night. So after working Saturday, I was ready for more. But before the concert, we decided to talk a good friend into seeing a Broadway show we thought he would enjoy ... and that we were dying (so to speak) to see again, namely "A Gentlemen's Guide to Love and Murder."

Mark and I were blown away by it last year. I bought tickets the night it won the Tony (but before it actually did), so we got pretty good seats and had a great time. Now with co-lead Bryce Pinkham and some of the other original cast members gone and one of the members of the ensemble, Jeff Kready, now in the protagonist's role, it would be the same but different. Of course, Jefferson Mays, the Tony-nominated star who somehow manages to pull off eight distinct roles in the production, remained the primary reason to go at all.

So after some leg twisting, we got Steve to go, and we set out for the Sunday matinee ahead of the second Clapton show. I thought it might take a while for him to get into it since he's one of many in the world who aren't interested in seeing a Broadway musical, but he was cackling with laughter almost from the outset. Because this ain't your grandma's Broadway musical. It's full of snarkiness and malevolence, but retains a great sense of humor about itself.

Since that was a matinee show and they had to do it all over again at 8 p.m., I thought the actors probably wouldn't be hanging out with the fans at the stage door. But since everyone else probably thought the same thing, the crowd was actually rather small and we did stay for a bit to see who we could see. One of the first ones out was Jeff Kready (who Mark actually liked better than Pinkham in the co-lead role).

I moved to the end of the line, a dangerous spot if an actor decides to cut and run after a couple of autographs, but a great spot for taking pictures together if he is so inclined. And Jeff was so gracious with everyone, it's really heartening to see someone move up from an ensemble role in the show to the lynchpin that holds everything together.

I told him we had seen the show twice, I don't know why I was surprised by his surprised reaction to that, but he was very grateful to have heard that. My big question for him was about whether it got confusing when getting directions, between Jeff and Jefferson. And he said, "Not really, cause he's always Jefferson." And I quipped, "Or Mr. Mays," and he repeated "Or Mr. Mays" with a laugh.

We waited some more, got to see some of the other cast members, including the hilarious Carole Shelley, who puts the show in off-kilter mode right from the get-go as Miss Shingle. She didn't stop, but she did wave to all of us. I wondered if Jefferson Mays would even come out the door, after all, it's a rigorous day for him without fan dwellers.

But he did, and I almost lost my shit. I don't curse a lot in my blog, but I was about five seconds away from breaking into tears when he started down the line. I was in my choice position again at the end. That really turned out in my favor, when Mark took the picture to end all pictures -- me and Jefferson, with a couple of his characters photo-bombing on the wall behind us.

I know my babblings included telling him that "Kind Hearts and Coronets" was my favorite movie, and I had been apprehensive about the show the first time I saw it, but that I loved it so much and that he was so brilliant. (Another one taken aback at hearing we'd seen it more than once.) Jefferson told me that he originally saw the movie when he was 8 years old, and it made him want to be an actor.

My question for him was about those rapid-fire costume and character changes he undergoes, sometimes having to be back on stage within a minute. He said at present there were four people who helped him with costume, "one for each limb." He's funny without a script too.

I was so overwhelmed with how nice they were that I actually had to sit down to catch my breath. Then we headed for Guy Fieri's American Kitchen and Bar, which was unsummarily ripped in its New York Times review, thus sealing Mark's interest in going to see what the fuss was about. The maitre d' asked if we had reservations and I mumbled, "we have serious reservations." The food was remarkably unspectacular, but my Pina Colada Royale and our waitress, Olivia, were amazing.

And then we were back at the Garden for the second Clapton show. Now mind you, by this time, I have had about four hours sleep five nights in a row, my work schedule is out of kilter and I'm reaching the point of total exhaustion. Which explains why I kept falling asleep during songs, having vivid nightmares and waking up within the same song. In the '60s, you needed drugs to have that kind of reaction at a show.

I was able to take notice of the fact that overall, the show was better and everything sounded spectacular. But I would say I enjoyed the first one more, because I got to stand and dance and I was really feeling it. The second one, we were in the front row in an upper section, and if I got up to dance there for any prolonged amount of time, there's a chance I would have toppled over the railing in my state.

This time, knowing that "Let It Rain" was going to bring down the house, they moved it to the end and did away with "Cocaine." And the rest was pretty much the same, only better and yet not quite the same for me. We did the terribly un-rock-and-roll-like thing of heading home immediately afterward, which was necessary but a bummer, because part of the magic of all of it will always be hanging out with friends after the show. So I didn't get to say a final farewell to Smoosan and Steve and Willie and Bruce and Renee and the gang. Instead, I'll just say see ya further on up the road.