As a fan of a wide variety of popular (and not-so-popular) music from the 1950s (and sometimes even earlier) up through the present, one of my bucket list projects for years has been to put together a list of my 100 favorite songs of all time. At some point I decided that, once I got around to figuring that out, I could put it out on a blog, for the infinitesimally small proportion of the Internet world that might be interested. So, here we are. While the Top 100 will be a major focus, I also plan to post on a variety of other musical (and occasionally non-musical) topics, in which you may or may not be interested. (If a particular posting doesn’t ring your bell, you’re only a few clicks away from a dancing cat video on YouTube.)

Thursday, July 2, 2015

John Fogerty (“1969” tour), Wolf Trap, 6/30/2015


Row K, Seats 60-61 (right side)
 
The first third of Tuesday night’s show by John Fogerty and his five bandmates (including son Shane Fogerty on guitar and the ubiquitous Kenny Aronoff on drums) was good. The remainder of the show was superb.
 
The turning point was an extended version of “Keep On Chooglin’”, an album track from Bayou Country, the first of three LPs that Creedence released during 1969. They followed with a well-chosen mix of hit singles (such as “Lodi” and “Green River”), extended workouts (“Ramble Tamble” and of course “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”), and covers of early rock classics (“Good Golly Miss Molly” and shortened versions of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu”, both of which featured Fogerty on piano). I was particularly impressed by their versions of a couple of singles that I had never counted among my favorites: “Hey Tonight” and “Long as I Can See the Light.”
 
The band kicked it into overdrive near the end, winding up with “Down on the Corner”, “Centerfield” (which drew the biggest crowd reaction of the night), an extended version of “The Old Man Down the Road”, and “Fortunate Son”. The enthusiastic crowd was rewarded with two classic encores: “Bad Moon Rising” and “Proud Mary”. (For whatever it’s worth, by my count just 10 of the 27 songs actually came from the year 1969, not that I’m complaining.)
 
The show started at 8:20 and ran just over two hours. In lieu of an opening act, the evening started with a 15-minute video focusing on the tour’s title year, with photos, concert footage, and some reminiscing from Fogerty. It wasn’t bad (and no doubt was particularly useful for those in the audience who didn’t live through it), but it tended to ramble at times, and for me ran at least 5 minutes too long.

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