We Really Should Have Been There...

Are we all talk about how we should be living every day like it was our last? Look what we missed last night!

Fogerty mines Creedence songbook for killer show

By Jeffrey Lee Puckett
jpuckett@courier-journal.com
Courier-Journal Critic

During a show I'll often scratch notes in the dark just so I won't forget any brilliant thoughts. Sometimes they're even legible and almost helpful. After Monday night's John Fogerty concert at the Louisville Palace, they read something like this:

"bad moon rising -- killin' it!"

sweet hitch-hiker! killin' it!"

"fortunate son. absolutely killin' it!!"

You get the idea. Fogerty and an airtight band pretty much killed it. The set was loaded with Creedence Clearwater Revival classics, major solo hits and choice material from his new album, "Revival." All of them were played with fire, but a few approached inferno level.

"Sweet Hitch-Hiker," by far the best song of CCR's later years, was delivered with an unreal intensity, as if Fogerty were still 25 and lusting after hippie girls with their thumbs out. "Fortunate Son" rivaled its energy, but its class-warfare pedigree made it resonate more deeply. "Travelin' Band" began the encore like a jet taking off.

Fogerty, 62, bounced around the stage all night, playing guitar better than ever and still shredding his larynx like a kid in his first band. He was driven by a manic Kenny Aronoff on drums (he was killin' it) and backup guitarists Hunter Perrin and Billy Burnette, of the legendary rockabilly Burnettes.

The band sounded full but kept everything simple, which is the key with Fogerty's songs; they're essentially rhythm machines, built to rock, groove or bring you down easy. Aronoff was key to the groove songs, making sure that "Born on the Bayou" and "The Old Man Down the Road" floated on swamp water, while the entire band unloaded on a wild "Ramble Tamble," which Fogerty unearthed from the "Cosmos Factory" album.

Of his new songs, "Longshot," "Creedence Song" and "I Can't Take It No More" best rekindled the CCR magic, while "Broken Down Cowboy" was nearly the night's prettiest song, trailing only "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" Of course, just about everything trails "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?"