After playing a show in Europe only 20 hours earlier, John Fogerty took to the darkened stage of the Riverside Theater as fog and the sound of crickets filled the air.
Fogerty and his group started with "Travelin' Band," and kept going with the classic Creedence Clearwater Revival tunes, "Green River," "Who'll Stop the Rain," and a few more. He sang "Hot Rod Heart," a tune off his 2004 release "Blue Moon Swamp," before launching into "I Will Walk With You," a song he wrote for his 5-year-old daughter while she was still an infant.
The band went back to the CCR catalog, starting a great jam with "Ramble Tamble," from "Cosmo's Factory," with one of rock and roll's greatest drummers, Kenny Aronoff, keeping up a fierce backbeat. After "Midnight Special" and "Bootleg," from "Bayou Country." It was just Fogerty and an acoustic guitar for "Déjà Vu All Over Again," a song that highlights the similarities between the second Iran war and Vietnam, showing that Fogerty still has it in him to write a good "political awareness" or protest song.
After "I Heard it Through the Grapevine," and "Have You Ever Seen the Rain," the band performed "Don't You Wish It Was True," a tune off Fogerty's upcoming album, "Revival," to be released this fall. It shows Fogerty's writing skills haven't diminished with age. It makes this writer wonder if some 20-something with the right look, tattoos, and hair had done this song how well it would be received in today's market.
Speaking of not diminishing, Fogerty's voice is still there. He still hit all the high notes on the classic CCR tunes -- the ones you can't get when you're belting them out driving by yourself--right on key. He played great guitar (he even showcased some Eddie Van Halen-style two-handed tapping before he broke into "Keep on Chooglin"), and he knew how to keep a crowd on their feet (Okay, maybe half a crowd. For some reason the audience on stage right stood for most of the show while everyone on stage left sat...)
I thought I'd be one of the younger ones there, but thankfully I wasn't. Not to sound like someone teetering on the brink of mid-life as I am, but John Fogerty still has many gifts to bring to the jambalaya of rock and roll. One of them is the gift of simplicity. He's not bogging himself or the listener down with lyrics about trying to change the world, or himself, or figure out his place in life, or back-porch philosophising.
His songs are about cars, girls, baseball and swamps. Sure, he does write quite a few protest songs, but he broke them down into simple words, three chords and a tasty guitar hook so even after thirty-plus years if you hear a CCR song on the radio you still want to, and can, sing along to. And in the case of "Déjà Vu All Over Again," it shows he can still pull it off. No wonder Fogerty was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005.
