ERIC Clapton has apologised to fans after technical problems disrupted his concert at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow, prompting many fans to demand a refund.
The legendary guitarist walked off stage part way through the penultimate song of the evening, Cocaine. He returned to play one final song, before leaving again.
Within minutes of Saturday night's concert ending angry fans, who paid around £60 for a ticket, took to websites including heraldscotland.com to express their anger. Several concertgoers also demanded refunds, saying they felt "let down and disappointed".
A spokesman for Clapton said he was "sorry for the break in the concert". She added: "Unfortunately, last night we experienced a steadily worsening technical problem with the PA system that the band battled with throughout the show but by the last song of the set it became unbearable on stage and Eric was unable to complete that number. During the encore break we were able to reset and the band finished as planned with the last number.
"The usual touring set length runs at one hour 35 minutes so in fact the full set was performed apart from the entirety of Cocaine which had to be curtailed."
Fans first realised something was wrong when Clapton walked off the stage part way through the song Cocaine. He returned after a few minutes and said "sorry about that" to the audience before playing the final song High Time We Went.
Although Clapton finished his full set list for the concert, excluding Cocaine, fans were left confused as to what had happened and many booed the seasoned performer. Others questioned why Clapton had not explained to the audience what was happening.
A spokesman for the SSE Hydro also apologised to fans and said: "The production team for last night's performance suffered a technical issue which resulted in the concert ending earlier than anticipated.
"By the time the venue had been made aware of the circumstances patrons were already leaving the bowl. However, our stewards and staff did their best to convey this information to customers as it became known."
One concert-goer, Wojtek Sromek, wrote on social media: "For a guy who travelled across half Europe to see Clapton at the SSE I feel truly unsatisfied. All in all, sorry to say, but it was quite a disappointing experience."
Lorna Macleod wrote: "Manners don't cost anything - perhaps Mr Clapton should remember that when his fans have paid £60 a ticket."
Others defended Clapton. Matt Bates wrote on HeraldScotland: "Yes, Eric walked off stage, but again, for the sake of accuracy, rather than sensationalist rubbish, he returned, apologised, and the band played the encore."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article