Fear, guitars and resurrection: Inside George Harrison’s 1991 tour
When you’ve seen the heights that The Beatles saw in their prime, there’s a good chance that nothing would phase you. The Fab Four had seen the kind of pandemonium beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, and even when the remaining band members talk about it today, they have mentioned that there’s no accurate way to describe getting hounded by screaming fans running down the street every day. Living that life tends to give people nerves of steel, but George Harrison was like a deer in headlights trying to make his way through one of his late-period tours.
Then again, Harrison was never the kind of person who wanted to have the grinding mentality that every other rockstar has. After The Beatles broke up, he was more than happy to continue a life inside making the kind of rock and roll that he loved, but outside of his work with The Concert for Bangladesh and the tour for Dark Horse, he never fell back in love with the touring life all that much.
And considering how he fared on that tour, it wasn’t like he was delivering his absolute best, either. The months of work and emotional strain had done a number on his vocal cords, and despite still having his guitar chops in fine form, it can be difficult going back to those live tapes and hearing him try to deliver a song like ‘What Is Life’ with a voice that sounds painful for him to sing.
But something strange happened in the late 1980s. For a decade, Harrison wanted absolutely nothing to do with on albums like Gone Troppo, he became re-energised after working with Jeff Lynne on Cloud Nine and forming The Traveling Wilburys. Despite the scrapped idea for the supergroup to go on tour, fans got the next best thing when Harrison committed to doing a run of shows with Eric Clapton.
By now, the bad blood between him and ‘Slowhand’ over Patti Boyd had become water under the bridge, and listening to what turned up on the live album Live in Japan was a welcome return to form for the ‘Quiet Beatle’. But the tour also proved to be a walking therapy session for both of them as well.
Even though Clapton was the ultimate road dog compared to the other rockers of his time, having him come to Japan for a run of dates may have been his way of moving on from the death of his son, Connor, only a few years before. This was still a bit of risk in some respects, given that Harrison hadn’t been playing a lot of his tunes on the road since the 1970s. He still sounded as Fab as ever, but according to Clapton, his friend was shaking in his boots on the first handful of nights before playing one note of music.
While Harrison could have easily stood at the front of the stage and received applause, Clapton said it took a lot of courage for him to play those shows, saying, “There’s nothing for him to worry about. I put the idea to him and he was delighted and scared at the same time. He was really scared to death. He changed his mind about five different times.”
Considering the setlist they played, Harrison couldn’t strike out too much. Outside of the greatest-hits style construction to the night, hearing him unearthing old Beatles songs like ‘I Want To Tell You’ and ‘Taxman’ worked great with a full band backing him, especially when they stretch things out and start jamming on the main theme for a little while.
There were even a few surprises that came with both of their sets. Even though Clapton was more than happy to support Harrison during the tour, there were a few moments where they would start jamming on each other’s tunes and even give a nod to each other, like ‘Slowhand’ performing the Cream classic ‘Badge’ that Harrison helped write him. Then again, any chance of either of them playing a tune like ‘Layla’ may have still been too close for comfort. Things were still cordial, but Harrison playing a song meant as a love letter to the woman that was stolen from him was going to raise a few eyebrows.
Still, it’s hard not to see each of them having some fun with it, even managing to make Harrison’s newer songs like ‘Devil’s Radio’ sound immaculate in a live setting. Even though the set didn’t convince Harrison to continue down the line any further, it’s nice to see him be able to take his final bow with grace. He did have one more album released posthumously with Brainwashed, but whereas that record was a more introspective listen, this is one last look at the fun-loving version of the Beatle that never felt more at home than when jamming with his buddies.
