It’s hard to remember what a bitter man John Fogerty when he made his first metro area solo appearance 34 years ago at the Pine Knob Music Theatre.
Furious that ownership of his Creedence Clearwater Revival songs — a bona fide library of Great American Rock ‘n’ Roll Songbook classics — had effectively been stolen from him, Fogerty refused to play any of the band’s music that night, sticking instead to material from his solo albums and some odd rock and R&B covers.
It was a different story on Sunday night, Aug. 4, at Pine Knob, when the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer played his first show in these parts since 2018.
Fogerty’s Celebration Tour stop was just that, an exultant blowout to commemorate him regaining global rights to his catalog in January of 2023. He’d started performing CCR songs again back in 1997, but on Sunday he did so with a different kind of exuberance, connecting the material as if reunited with a long-lost family member. It was a contagious spirit that had the 7,000 or so fans at the venue caught up in a nostalgic reverie.
Except that the night’s 21 songs — 15 from CCR — breathed a fresh kind of fire throughout a 90-minute show that went right up to Pine Knob’s 11 p.m. curfew. Some credit for that goes to Fogerty’s sons Shane and Tyler, whose band Hearty Har backed their father (and opened the evening with their own set) and infused the repertoire with high-octane, face-melting energy that belied their relative youth and Fogerty senior’s 79 years. The songs — mostly compact, economical and effortlessly tuneful — were delivered with a blistering, almost breathless fury, and the flannel-clad Fogerty was more than up to the task, continuously demonstrating the guitar acumen that’s sometimes overshadowed by his songwriting achievements.
Coming on after George Thorogood & the Destroyer’s typically bad-to-the-bone boogie fest, Fogerty and company started with a video in which he spoke about songwriting, regaining his catalog and playing with his sons before kicking onto what amounted to the first part of a greatest hits album. “Bad Moon Rising,” which Fogerty sang from a rear-stage riser with a full moon projected on the video screen, “Up Around the Bend,” “Green River,” “Born on the Bayou,” “Who’ll Stop the Rain” and “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” blew by in a fury, paused only by the occasional story — like the one Fogerty being reunited with a Rickenbacker guitar he’d given away 44 years prior.
Saxophonist Rob Stone came out for Fogerty’s solo single “Rock and Roll Girls” and highlighted several other numbers, and there were some deep digs into the CCR repertoire for the likes of “It Came Out of the Sky,” “Effigy,” the spiritual-flavored “As Long As I Can See the Light” and “Fight Fire,” a British Invasion-styled song recorded by CCR when it was known as the Golliwogs. The latter provided one of the night’s touching moments, too, as the three Fogertys jammed through the song close together on stage, with Tyler sharing vocal leads with his father.
Family ties were also on display for “Joy of My Life,” which Fogerty wrote for his wife (and manager) Julie, who was seated side stage. Photos of their wedding and other images of the family scrolled by as the group worked its way through the ballad.
The best moments, however, came when the troupe stretched out during the gritty boogie of “Keep On Chooglin’,” with Fogerty also on harmonica, the country blues of Lead Belly’s “Cotton Fields” and a six-minute tear through “The Old Man Down the Road,” which found Fogerty and son Shane going toe-to-toe with their guitars.
“Fortunate Son” closed the main set, and there was barely time for a single encore. Before that, Fogerty again spoke of his joy in owning his songs again, and outliving those who kept them from him.
“But the most important thing,” he added, “is that you’re the only reason I’m here. You carried these songs in your heart for so long. Thank you.” And he left them with one more to carry, the indelible “Proud Mary,” sending everyone rollin’, rollin’ out into the night on the kind of high you only get from hearing a classic body of work presented with palpable passion by its creator.
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