Eric Clapton Refuses To Perform At “Vaccine Mandate” Venues After His “Disastrous” Vaccination Experience

If you want to hang out

You’ve got to take them out

Vaccine Mandates

Good for Eric Clapton.

The Rock and Blues singer is putting his foot down against the tyranny of the British government and refusing to play at any venue that enforces vaccine mandates.

According to Consequence:

The pronouncement came after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that, by the end of September, “We are planning to make full [COVID-19] vaccination the condition of entry to nightclubs and other venues where large crowds gather.

… Via Pollstar, Clapton shared his thoughts in a letter to anti-lockdown activist Robin Monotti Graziadei, who subsequently published it on Telegram. “Following the PM’s announcement on Monday the 19th of July 2021 I feel honour bound to make an announcement of my own: 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.”

Eric Clapton stands up against vaccine mandates pic.twitter.com/dvwsHDm3I9

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2023) July 22, 2021

Thank you! https://t.co/Kb6NlRF1HA

— Jennifer Van Laar (@jenvanlaar) July 22, 2021

Clapton claps back at venues requiring vaccine https://t.co/cpFocLXOHW

— Anthony F (@OhioAF) July 21, 2021

The reason for Clapton’s strong stand against vaccine mandates stems from his own “disastrous” experience with the vaccine.

Clapton shares his experience in another Rolling Stone article:

“I took the first jab of AZ and straight away had severe reactions which lasted ten days. I recovered eventually and was told it would be twelve weeks before the second one…,” Clapton wrote.

“About six weeks later I was offered and took the second AZ shot, but with a little more knowledge of the dangers. Needless to say the reactions were disastrous, my hands and feet were either frozen, numb or burning, and pretty much useless for two weeks, I feared I would never play again, (I suffer with peripheral neuropathy and should never have gone near the needle.) But the propaganda said the vaccine was safe for everyone…”

n the letter, Clapton also discussed discovering “heroes” like anti-lockdown U.K. politician Desmond Swayne as well as similarly-minded (and some would argue conspiratorial) YouTube channels.

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“I continue to tread the path of passive rebellion and try to tow the line in order to be able to actively love my family, but it’s hard to bite my tongue with what I now know,” Clapton wrote.

…

Clapton also revealed in his letter that he performs on Morrison’s “Where Have All the Rebels Gone?,” a track off Latest Record Project Vol. 1, the Irish singer’s “darkly strange and delightfully terrible” new album, as Rolling Stone called it. (Clapton mistakenly calls the track “The Rebels” in his letter.)

“It’s not aggressive or provocative, it just asks ‘Where have all the rebels gone? Hiding behind their computer screens. Where’s the spirit, where is the soul. Where have all the rebels gone,’” Clapton wrote.

All the rebels haven’t gone yet.

We’re so glad that Clapton is choosing to be one of them.