SAN JOSE, Calif.--Although he's packed several lifetimes into his 61 years, Eric Clapton still has the guitar mojo of a fiery youngster.

But unlike the guitar god that burst onto the scene in the 1960s, Clapton is now content to use it sparingly and let the next generation of axe men do the heavy lifting, as he was last night in a two-hour set at the HP Pavilion in San Jose.

After years of digging deep into the Mississippi Delta blues canon and crafting lighter fare, Clapton has been mining his own archives on this latest tour, in particular Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, the brilliant 1970 double album Clapton's Derek and the Dominoes made with legendary slide guitarist Duane Allman.

Clapton's been able to do that for one reason: 27-year-old Derek Trucks, the greatest slide guitarist in the world right now and a member of the Allman Brothers Band that the late slide player Allman cofounded in 1969.

Layla centered on the dueling guitars of Allman and Clapton, who were both at the height of their axe-wielding powers at the time. Trucks has stepped into the void Allman left, wielding the bottleneck with jaw-dropping ease.

Clapton also has brought dynamic Texas guitarist Doyle Bramhall II, a fantastic artist in his own right, on this tour. Between the two of them, Trucks and Bramhall threatened to steal the show at times last night, and Clapton seemed content to let them do just that, particularly Trucks.

Backed by a tight band on bass, drums, piano, keyboards, and two backing vocalists, Clapton focused on Derek and the Dominoes material early, performing "Tell the Truth," "Got To Get Better In A Little While," and "Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad" right out of the gate. Although they never matched the all-out fury of their versions on the Dominoes' 1970 double live album In Concert, the tracks were scorching at times.

The guitar trio tag teamed for most of the night, trading solos and leaving each other plenty of room to move. It is pretty amazing to hear the emotion pour out of a guitar in the right hands, and all three proved adept at wringing sentiment out of their instruments.

Trucks left the most lasting impression in the quieter spaces of the songs, especially when he and Clapton traded melancholic flurries back and forth on tracks like "Layla," the pre-encore finale. While Clapton's solos tended to be economic, those of Bramhall and Trucks started slow and built the pace steadily.

"Motherless Children" was the highlight of the night, with Bramhall seeming to kick the band into a higher gear with haunting riffs in the vein of Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Opener Robert Cray joined the band for the final song of the night, a rousing rendition of "Crossroads."

In the hands of the masters, the guitar can convey emotion to match the human voice. Clapton's voice, while solid, has never been his calling card, and on this night, the axes did the talking.