Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Concert

THE REVIEW

John Fogerty: vocals, guitar, harmonica. - Tom Fogerty: guitar. - Stu Cook: bass. - Doug "Cosmo" Clifford: drums.

The Creedence Clearwater Revival, America, rock, camping summers, journeys, life...

Music that makes you want to get a camper, find a beautiful and good maiden, make as many babies as possible, and leave. Yes, leave... but where to? Wherever you want, the CCR are spartan guys, they adapt, sea, mountains... and the dream of a coast to coast in the states seems almost coming true. And if you're lazy? If you like to stay at home doing nothing? If, above all, you don't have any damn camper? No worries, John and his mates will know how to brighten even your dull home evenings. They were said to be a family band, a kind of Disney band... Bullshit! I say. John's was one of the most enticing voices of the West, and who knows how many young girls at the time reached their first orgasm alone, in the darkness of their room, listening to I Heard It Through the Grapevine... maybe someone even got pregnant, damn. And while elsewhere in the world rockers were becoming more and more megalomaniac, trying to astonish with special effects and foundation, those four lads seemed to be stuck in the '50s. - Wake up John, psychedelia is raging in the world, LSD, progressive is being born! - Whatever!? He replied. - I'm just a country boy with a rock&roll hobby. LSD? I'd rather have a bottle of good whiskey. Plaid shirts and tight blue jeans emphasizing stuff and counterstuff, two guitars, bass, drums, some speakers and a stage made of worm-eaten wooden beams. And John knew how to handle a guitar, he didn't fake it like Elvis, didn't carry the guitar just to look cooler, he actually needed that guitar; sure, not a virtuoso, no particular acrobatics, after all, John played rock, who cared about putting on a circus show!? Blues chord progressions and phrases, some country-western variations, a lot of passion, good taste and loads of grit, this was enough, why complicate life? Yes, and the other three? They weren't just watching! And no, Tom, Doug, and Stu weren't clueless either (and with those names, imagine if they could play progressive!), skilled, concrete musicians with solid blues foundations, country boys with their heads on straight, raised with a kick in the ass and cows to milk, and in the evening all at the saloon to party.

But the Creedence was also the strange parabola of the Fogerty brothers, for John fame, success, glory, and a phallic voice, for Tom... life didn't smile at Tom at all, but he was an excellent rhythm guitarist, and without him, the band dissolved in no time. May he rest in peace.

The events tied to the live production of this band in some ways anticipated what happened to Led Zeppelin, that is, the first live album published was crap; one of those whims of some screwed up record executive piece of shit, who had the brilliant idea of releasing a vinyl, "Live in Europe," with recordings of the threesome, the one without Tom, the worst, the most negligible, while there was much better in the archives. John resisted, like a good cowboy, threatening to invade the record company with a herd of rodeo bulls, riding Furia to the notes of Cotton Fields, but nothing could be done. Fortunately, in 1980, justice was finally done, and the vinyl "The Concert" was released, containing the extract (50 minutes) of the show recorded in California, at the Oakland Coliseum, on January 31, 1970. And Gentlemen, damn, this is a great record! At the time, the four were working on Cosmo's Factory, and that evening they gifted a couple of previews, the unleashed rock&roll of Travellin' Band (how pissed off must Little Richard be!?) and the magnificent ballad Who'll stop The Rain, chilling in this performance (guess who inspired the Eagles). The Concert captures the CCR during their period of maximum splendor, full of ideas, in full creative phase, and the problems between Tom and John still far away. Besides the two cited pieces, 12 other gems. It starts with the dirty and hypnotic Born on The Bayou, then Green River, the excellent blues-rock of Tombstone Shadow, the typical country of Don't Look Now, going through the fun Bad Moon Rising, the very famous Proud Mary (who hasn't hummed that chorus?), the almost hard rock of the adrenaline-filled Fortunate Son (recently also heard in the soundtrack of Die Hard 4). Commotion is another splendid rock-blues (and the intro will remind you at some point of that nice guy Lenny Kravits).

The Midnight Special and Night Time is The Right Time are two splendid covers where you can appreciate all Fogerty's talent as a blues singer. It follows with Down on the Corner, and here the butt starts moving automatically, if you remain still on this piece it means you're gone, it's just that it hasn't been officially declared yet. Compared to studio recordings, there's a more decisive drum, rougher guitars, and accelerated rhythms, but no piece is overturned, and in the end, it was right like this; those were little jewels, which in 2-3 minutes managed to say everything, short but intense, not trivial songs, on the contrary (paraphrasing the spot of the famous brand of paintbrushes, the Creedence Clearwater Revival did not make big songs, but great songs). But in the finale Keep on Chooglin' the band shows everyone that when they wanted to stretch the pieces, they encountered no particular difficulty, and in the 9 minutes of exhibition, you can appreciate all John's talent, who goes wild, unleashes with the guitar, tougher than usual in the solos, then switches to the harmonica, then back to the guitar, always improvising excellently. But it's the whole band that is excellent, never an offbeat break, never a misplaced note, perfectly in sync.

Finished listening to the CD, you immediately want to hear it again, again and again, and believe me, you'll struggle to take it out of the stereo. The overall quality of the recording is also very good, it’s a whole different thing compared to Live in Europe, so much so that you can affirm that "The Concert" is the only real live of the CCR. I add that recently (2008) Universal\Fantasy released a two-CD collection titled Best Of, where the first disc is a classic Greatest Hits, the second is live and is precisely this live, exactly as is. So those interested in the product, but who can’t find it, can also rely on this compilation. What else to say? "The Concert" is certainly not one of those lives that made history, but anyone who listens to it risks seriously choosing it as their favorite record (provided you like the genre... but yes, you will like it, everyone likes them)

The Creedence Clearwater Revival, America, rock...