“Eric’s standing there drinking an orange juice. He looks at me and says, ‘Been doing this a while, have you?’” When Eric Clapton saw an up-and-coming Tommy Emmanuel play for the first time

Left-Tommy Emmanuel performs at Ryman Auditorium on March 16, 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee; Right-Eric Clapton performs onstage during Day 1 of Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival at Crypto.com Arena on September 23, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.

Back in 1990, Tommy Emmanuel opened for a certain Eric Clapton on the Australian leg of the Journeyman tour. For Emmanuel, it was a pivotal support tour, helping him gain further prominence in his home country – a few months after the release of his album, Dare to Be Different, his first top twenty album on the ARIA Charts.

“I went from selling 500 tickets to a 1000 almost like the next week, doing that tour with Eric,” he tells Ed Struijlaart on the Gitaarmannen podcast. “He was so nice to me. He was so professional.