Eric Clapton says he won’t play gigs which will require audience members to show proof that they have been vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus.
One of a number of British musicians, wholly unqualified in any medical capacity, who have suddenly developed a deep interest in virology during a period when 4.13 million people worldwide have died due to coronavirus-related symptoms, Clapton revealed his stance following British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s declaration that anyone wishing to attend nightclubs or venues after the end of September will be required to display ‘vaccination passports’.
“Following the PM’s announcement on Monday the 19th of July 2021 I feel honor-bound to make an announcement of my own,” Clapton said. “I wish to say that I will not perform on any stage where there is a discriminated audience present. Unless there is provision made for all people to attend, I reserve the right to cancel the show.”
The guitarist’s statement was shared via the Telegram account of Italian film producer/architect and Covid sceptic Robin Monotti, and linked to Clapton’s protest song duet with the newly politically aware Van Morrison, Stand And Deliver, where the two tireless and fearless truth-seekers pool wisdom accrued on their combined 151 years on the planet to ask provocative questions such as “Do you wanna be a free man or do you wanna be a slave?”
Other newly-enlightened men of science who’ve vocally trumpeted their YouTube-acquired knowledge of the spread of infectious diseases include celebrated ’80’s polymaths Right Said Fred and popular-in-the-1990s indie troubadours Noel Gallagher and Richard ‘Natural Rebel’ Ashcroft.
Clapton’s next scheduled UK shows will take place at the Royal Albert Hall next May.
The guitarist hasn’t always been such a champion of anti-discrimination. During an infamous show at Birmingham Odeon on August 5, 1976, Clapton used a number of deeply offensive racial slurs onstage, warned his audience about the danger of ‘foreigners’ in England and expressed the view that the British government should “send them all back.”
Clapton finally got around to apologising for his racist rant in his 2017 documentary Life in 12 Bars.
“When I realised what I said, I just was so disgusted with myself,” he said, offering a recollection that somehow escaped him for the previous 41 years. “I was so fucking angry. And I thought I needed to apologise to the people that I said that to, because it was shocking and unforgivable and I was so ashamed of who I was. I was becoming not only chauvinistic, but fascistic too. I was a kind of semi racist.”
