Eric Clapton live at the Royal Albert Hall: God comes home. Again.

Photo: Ron Kirby

Call him what you like, call him "Clapped-Out", call him Slowhand, even call him the Almighty, Eric Clapton is still at heart a blues guitarist whom, if you're into blues guitar, outshines most others.

Purists will say he's a charlatan because he doesn't use all six strings, or that he sold out when he went country, or that he swapped heroin and booze for Ferrari and Armani and lost his credibility in the process.

But at 68, the somewhat shy superstar who walks on stage at the Royal Albert Hall with the sort of brief, awkward wave you give an unfamiliar neighbour, is still - when he allows himself - as thunderous a player as he was when a cheeky graffitist dawbed "Clapton is God" on a Tube station wall, 45 years ago.

That wave - repeated with equal abbreviation for the encore - is as much crowd interaction as you get with Eric. There are no rambling tales, jokes or orchestrated crowd singalongs; applauding fans get a cursory "thankyew!" after each song and then it's on with the next one. This isn't, by the way, a detached rock legend failing to engage with the faithful: to a certain extent, this is still the diffident Surbiton schoolboy who learned his craft busking, under-age, in the riverside pubs of Kingston-upon-Thames. Before, obviously, becoming the world's most talked about British guitarist.

We are here for the fifth night of his seven-night residency at the Albert Hall, a venue Clapton has played almost 200 times since his debut there in 1964, and a venue that has become regarded as his spiritual home.

It is, though, an odd place for rock deity to ply their trade. Despite being more ornate Victorian wedding cake than rock amphitheatre, with its plush red velvet boxes and debenture seating, its surprisingly low stage and modest 4,000 capacity gives an intimacy that, perhaps, veers closest to the suburban saloon bars Clapton would travel by Green Line bus, from rural Ripley in Surrey, to play.

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It is still an incongruous venue to hear the music of the Mississippi Delta. But it is still a joy to hear it. Clapton has, of course, come a long, long way from churning out Robert Johnson and Big Bill Broonzy songs on his Hoyer acoustic, bought for £2 by his grandmother in Bell Music on the Ewell Road in Tolworth. Which is now a hairdressers and a cafe.

This run at the Albert Hall - part of a tour to promote his enjoyably easy-going album Old Sock and celebrating his 50th year as a professional musician - condenses into one 22-song set the variety of his repertoire: the bluesy ones, the soulful ones, the quiet ones and the sort of fretboard workouts that started all the fuss in the first place with The Yardbirds, John Mayall and Cream.

Tonight, however, the somewhat sedate figure on stage seems a world away from the British Blues demon of the 60s, the 70s rock casualty, or the recovering playboy of the 80s. Throughout all these eras, all five decades of his coin-earning years, Clapton has been a sturdy professional, surrounded by the similarly proficient. Tonight he has with him the superb Paul Carrack - Britain's best white soul voice, bar none - on organ and vocals, longtime supporting keyboard player Chris Stainton, young buck Doyle Bramhall II (a ringer for the frizzy-haired 1967-version Clapton) on guitar (and who takes his fair share of soloing), Greg Leisz on pedal steel, Willie Weeks on bass and Steve Jordan on drums.

For those who go back a while with Clapton's work, the opening number of Hello Old Friend, from 1976's No Reason To Cry, is a bold and refreshingly unexpected beginning to the set.

My Father's Eyes, which follows, is a mere whippersnapper at only 15 years old, but the guitarist stretches back even further with his third track of the night, resurrecting Tell The Truth from the Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs album recorded under the guise of Derek and the Dominos. Those less familiar with Clapton's oldest canon might be fooled into thinking they're listening to new tracks, such is the fresh energy this band applies to such old material.

Gotta Get Over actually sounds like it was first written and recorded in the early 70s, despite being one of two new compositions included on Old Sock, while Black Cat Bone messes completely with chronology - a choppy blues first cut in the mid-80s by Albert Collins, as opposed to those in the set with considerably older heritage.

Then we're back to raid the Dominos era with the uplifting Got To Get Better In A Little While, here given a hefty gospel treatment that allows backing singers Michelle John and Sharon White to open the taps fully.

Carrack gets his first chance of the evening to showcase that voice, taking the lead vocal on the much-covered standard Come Rain Or Come Shine, before handing back to Clapton for the first hair-on-neck 'moment' of the evening: Badge.

The trouble with listening to legends playing the material that first established their legend status is that familiarity - especially for a 45-year-old song like Badge - can inhibit any fresh listening. How can the Stones go through playing Jumpin' Jack Flash and Satisfaction still, or McCartney with Yesterday, after all these years is beyond me (revenue, I suspect, helps), but Clapton still manages to make Badge sound box-fresh. Over the years I must have heard that solo - including trying to play it myself - and the familiar V-IV-II-I-V riff thousands of times. Clapton will have played it even more, and yet he continues to effortlessly put passion through that Stratocaster even now.

It is perfectly understandable, then, that we reach the "Seated" part of the evening. Electrified instruments are swapped for acoustic and chairs are brought on for the band as we cruise through a lengthy, seven-song sequence of gentler, 'unplugged' numbers - starting with the 1940s blues hit Driftin', the venerable Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out and Paul Carrack singing his own composition It Ain't Easy (To Love You).

Photo: Linda Wnek

Layla, which you'll remember is an agitated song about infatuation, is reduced to something of a cabaret shuffle. A shame, really. The MTV Unplugged version was an entertaining novelty but should have been left as a one-off before returning to the full-blooded version.

Tears In Heaven - which must still be a painful song for Clapton to reproduce, given it's inspiration - is given a frivolous Caribbean lilt that defies the tragedy behind it. And then Wonderful Tonight, that contractually-obliged, dewy-eyed wedding reception perennial, is delivered with the only bespoke alteration being Bramhall getting to play the famous slowed down country riff beloved of amateur guitarists and loathed by those violently indifferent to the song's insipidness in fairly equal measure.

Appropriately, as the music stops the chairs are taken away, the band blasts into more vintage fare: Blues Power. A 12-bar boogie from Clapton's eponymous solo debut in 1970, it was recorded in that purple period of rock music between 1967 and 1971 when vitality was at its peak, drugs were a creative spur rather than financial and social millstone they were to soon become, and output was a rich mid-Atlantic soup of blues, country, folk and any other genre that came to mind.

It was during this period that the Rolling Stones made an authentic recording of Robert Johnson's Love In Vain (featuring, I recently discovered, Ry Cooder on guitar). Clapton applied his own authenticity to it on his tribute album Me And Mr. Johnson, but tonight gives it a full R'n'B oomph with the entire band flailing away (later to do the same with another Johnson cover from that album, Little Queen of Spades).

Crossroads, another unavoidable entry in Clapton's live repertoire, emerges at a frantic pace. Such are the different tempos I've heard it played over the years, in my head it sounds like someone messing with the RPM. Moreover, like so many interpretations of classic songs of the Delta, Crossroads has long lost the high-pitched folksiness of the Johnson original, but as a old friend of Clapton's - it's the name he's given both his Antiguan drug recovery centre and the fundraising guitar festival in its honour - it's a song he could play a thousand different ways without losing anything.

Though open to less variation, Cocaine is, at least, more of a crowd singalong than we've had all night. Myriad bar room blues bands have given it a go, but no-one - not even JJ Cale who wrote and recorded it in the first place - has managed to give the song the same crowd-pleasing amplitude.

And that is part of Clapton's enduring appeal: he may never have been the most pioneering songwriter - though his songwriting has, at times, been tragically overlooked by his instrumental prowess - but his true gift is that blues-rooted guitar. Yes, there may even be better contemporary blues guitar players - Rory Gallagher, Albert Lee, even fellow Surrey suburbanite Jeff Beck, but such competition should never detract from how good Clapton has always been, and still is.

I've seen Clapton before, but this was, after many attempts, is the first time I've seen him at the Albert Hall. A venue is just a venue, of course, but within its rotund chamber, Clapton's fluidity as a truly unique guitarist comes through with rich and enveloping clarity. Even if you've never had much interest in the blues, or guitars, or even Clapton himself, you can't help being impressed by true virtuosity which may have improved with age, but must have been mind-blowing when, as an 18-year-old, he first rocked south-west London after joining The Yardbirds in October 1963.

Seeing him at a venue he has likened to playing his front room (I presume for its familiarity rather than opulent expanse) could be a little like going to a West End musical like Les Miserables: it's been going a long time, you more or less know all the tunes, and you know that most of the rest of the audience will be mainly older than you and wearing their smart going out to the theatre togs.

Yes, the audience will be a little bit conventional, notably white, middle class and probably driving Jags, but sooner or later they will loose their English shackles. On this particular evening, it takes the encore to leave everyone standing on their feet for the finale of Sunshine Of Your Love.

Still, to this day, the only psychedelic rock song to feature a riff from Blue Moon, it is dispatched by the Clapton ensemble with hearty relish, much to the crowd's clear glee. Why, there are even a few awkward attempts at air guitar. Thankfully these were few, and rendered ridiculous by the arrival onstage of Gary Clark Jr., the brilliant bluesman-come-actor whom Clapton has had as support act during the Albert Hall residency.

Closing with the old Joe Cocker song High Time We Went, with Carrack again making his presence felt on vocals and Stainton - who co-wrote the song - pumping away at the piano - it draws a warming blanket of comfort over the evening.

Clapton leaves the stage scratching his head as if going indoors for a cup of tea after putting in some bedding plants. It's a saunter, but not one of audience disrespect, just one who has seen it all before. As a guitarist, he still is God. I just would expect him to be rather bored of that tag by now.

Memories from the bottom of the garden

The Daily Mail is the self-appointed beating heart of Middle England. Much of its 'news' coverage is enraged thundering about BBC excess, or gratuitious photographs of female celebrities dressed in such a way as to leave "little to the imagination".

The Mail's other stock-in-trade is reunion stories. These come in two versions: D-Day veterans meeting up for the first time since pegging it across Juno Beach under significantly inconvenient German gunfire; and tales of childhood sweethearts who, since sharing a bus ride in 1937, have lived separate lives until a chance encounter outside a High Street pie shop ignites flames of octogenarian passion.

Thankfully, the Mail is unlikely to catch up with my own story of renewed acquaintance: it may not compete with lead-dodging Tommies for drama or Sid and Doris and their romance rekindled for warming of the heart's cockles, but it does roll back more years than I'm really at ease contemplating.

It starts with one of those lost evenings on Wikipedia that Eddie Izzard warns against - clicking on one blue link leads to another, and another, before you've acquired - momentarily - a small pile of trivia you have little use for and equally little chance of retaining.

One Tuesday evening two years ago in late March, I was idly touring the Wikiverse, vacantly jumping from link to link about rock stars connected to my native suburb on the London/Surrey borders. I'd long been curious about the high concentration of talent to have originated from this corner of England: Eric Clapton was born in the idyllic village of Ripley, was schooled in Surbiton and launched his career in the riverside pubs of Kingston. Paul Weller hails from Woking and, ironically, now has his HQ in Ripley; The Rolling Stones built their reputation at Richmond's Crawdaddy Club, The Who put nearby Eel Pie Island in Twickenham on the map, Rod Stewart was discovered busking at Twickenham railway station, and The Yardbirds shared a house in Kew. And, as What Would David Bowie Do? has previously noted, John Martyn was born in my birthtown, New Malden.

The last blue link I selected that evening revealed that, on November 3, 1967, the Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames gained a new resident, Steven Wilson, lead singer, guitarist, principal songwriter and Grammy-nominated producer of Porcupine Tree, prolific collaborator of a restless number of side-projects including the highly acclaimed Blackfield with Israeli superstar Aviv Geffen, and more recently, taking on the task of remastering the entire King Crimson back catalogue.

Whether by fate or happy accident, some months before a colleague had recommended a listen to Porcupine Tree. I'd missed their emergence in the early 1990s - it happens - but dove in and acquired their albums Deadwing and In Absentia, discovering in the process a band that was regulalrly selling out legendary venues like New York's Radio City Music Hall and the Royal Albert Hall.

Although described as 'progressive rock' - by no means a derogatory description in my book - it was clear that Porcupine Tree's roots, ho-ho, lay in a rich foundation of influences, ranging from late ’60s psychedelia, early ’70s prog, ’80s metal and the more recent ambient/alt-rock scenes. Sitting, comfortably, somewhere between Muse, Athlete, Eno, Radiohead and TalkTalk, amongst other more extreme sources (German industrial rock is a strong possibility), it was a delight to hear an English band revelling in the musical territory I'd been enjoying since first taking interest in the fact I was taking interest in music itself.

So, back to my Wiki-clicking: the Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree fame was the Steven Wilson born eight days before I arrived in the same borough. This was odd since, for the first six years of my existence there was a Steven Wilson living around the corner from me, who was born the week before me, and thus along with me would have been doing a decent job of keeping our respective neighbours awake in those winter months of 1967 and 1968.

This could still have been a huge coincidence, but I thought the easiest way to establish the facts was to chance a "This might seem strange, but..." e-mail sent to Steven's management company. Within an hour - and with the intermediary "Stalker or legit?" from his manager - the man himself wrote back: "Yes, I'm me, and you are you." Contact made, after 36 years.

Steven and I were six when we went our separate ways. His father's work took the family to Hertfordshire which, while hardly emigration, felt that way back then. Having met at kindergarten, we became friends and would frequently play together, Steven appearing at the hole in the fence at the bottom of our garden (his house backed on to mine), me going round to his house (and once disgracing myself by tripping arse-over-tit on his mum's newly washed front step, spilling vast flagons of claret all over it in the process.

Connecting again with Steven bridged a strange chasm of distance. Facebook and its ilk age have ensured that keeping in touch with your past, with school friends and old colleagues, no longer requires the services of the Pinkertons. This, however, was different. At four, five or six years old, life lacked any greater purpose or importance than what would be the Action Man outfit your next birthday might provide.

We tend to chapterise our life history: Childhood, The Teenage Years, School, First Romance, Leaving Home, Starting Work, and so on - departments of a life lived to date, each with their own set of characters, experiences and associated memories. Steven and I, on the other hand, shared only a prologue, which made me at least realise that the passing of 36 years was an awfully long time.

Before, however, we could meet in person and wistfully recount the expiry of time, progress and, in Steven's case, extreme achievement, fate intervened for, apparently, the second time (while I was working as a music journalist several years ago, Steven had in fact tried to get in touch with me. Sadly, his letter went astray). With purpose, a ticket and a backstage pass for Porcupine Tree's Amsterdam show in October 2009, we planned to catch up properly.

Unfortunately this attempt was thwarted by the brand of officiousness that is an occupational hazard to habitual liggers, but should not come between two childhood friends getting together after three and a half decades. Armed with the aftershow 'laminate' (backstage pass by another name) Steven had generously arranged for me to have, I strode up to what turned out to be a colour-blind security guard who decided that my pink pass wasn't the same colour as the puce pass on his clipboard - which by now matched the puce complexion of my face. By the time he'd resolved the issue with someone more senior, the opportunity had been lost.

This week, 36 became 38, and Steven and I finally met in Paris. His excellent solo album, Grace Before Drowning, had brought him to the prestigious Bataclan theatre in Paris.

As with the Amsterdam show, there was something surreal about seeing him on stage. I've seen friends in bands perform before, but when the lead singer is someone you last saw at the age of six, there is little to relate to apart from the knowledge that you knew each other only as young children.

When we shook hands later it wasn't a moment of or for sentiment, nor was it meant to be. It was more a moment of novelty, like two passing acquaintances from many years before falling through the same hole in time and landing in a now empty, cavernous Parisian hall.

Although almost four decades is an awful long time to cover in the handful of minutes available - the chapters both too numerous and too irrelevant to recount - it was a moment of satisfaction.

There was also pride that someone from the furthest reaches of my past, from before any of us had formed ambitions or an idea of what they wanted out of life, apart from beoming Colonel Steve Austin, had become a talented, successful musician making the kind of music I like.

There was also the sense that, in some small way, falling through that hole in time and meeting the grown up, adult Steven, built an abstract bridge to an increasingly distant chapter in my life. One that will be filled in with greater detail I'm sure when the two of us get together for a proper natter.