When 'God' Played Wings Stadium: Eric Clapton 6/13/1979

Slowhand brought his guitar skills and bluesman Muddy Waters to Wings Stadium for one unforgettable June night in Kalamazoo.

Eric Clapton was a newlywed in 1979. Two years after he wrote "Wonderful Tonight" for his best friend George Harrison's wife, Clapton and Pattie Boyd were married on March 27 in Tucson. Arizona was the first U.S. stop on a tour that had begun in Ireland, and would bring him to Kalamazoo in June.

The Midwest leg of the tour brought the musicians from Buffalo, NY to Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio, then Saginaw, Michigan. The bus was back in Cincinnati two days later, then on to Indianapolis before the trek to Madison, St. Paul and Chicago. Now starting to make some sense, the bands unloaded at Wings the next night before moving on to South Bend. Truly a world tour, the journey landed in Great Britain in September of '79, before departing for Austria, Germany, Serbia, Hungary, Poland, Israel, Thailand, Philippines, and Japan before the year was over. The shows at the now-legendary Budokan Theatre in Tokyo were recorded and released as the double album Just One Night in 1980.

While we don't have an official setlist from the Wings Stadium show in Kalamazoo, it is likely it looked a lot like this from the show the night before in Chicago: