John Fogerty turned out a quality show tonight at the Bergen PAC in Englewood, NJ. As good as the show was, what makes me laugh is his 90-minute set ended at 9:45 and I was home by 10:15. That has never happened to me at a concert before!
The show started with Travelin’ Band to begin a rocking first six or seven tunes. The energy kept coming, as he followed with Green River, Hey Tonight, Up Around The Bend, Who’ll Stop The Rain, and Lookin’ Out My Back Door. This part of the show rocked, his band was tight, and one of the members was his son, Shane, on guitar.
The pace slowed down a little as he played Midnight Special and Long As I Can See The Light. He then launched into I Heard It Through The Grape Vine, which was a different version than heard on the album. Fogerty has five band members playing behind him: his aforementioned son and another guy on guitar, a bass player, keyboard player, and drummer. It was on Grape Vine, where things became different, as the jamming consisted of a keyboard solo and bass solo. Both were well played and the keyboard solo had a jazzy, New Orleans flavor to it that I liked. Nonetheless, I was expecting closer to the original version which is one of my three favorite Creedence tunes.
They switched over to some New Orleans style music, with a song I was not familiar with, followed by a version of Gary US Bonds’ New Orleans.
The energy returned to the show, playing Keep On Chooglin’, Have You Ever Seen The Rain, Down On The Corner, and Center Field, complete with old baseball footage from the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s. The main set closed out with Old Man Down The Road and Fortunate Son.
For the encore, the band came out and played Bad Moon Rising and Proud Mary.
His band was very good and his son is a good guitarist. I liked the drummer and the band was tight, as expected.
It was a very good and well played show, but I thought his show at the PNC Arts Center around 2004 or 2005 was better. That was the show he opened up for John Mellencamp. I am not knocking this show; I just thought the other one was better. It was a show where Mellencamp played a good set, but I overheard somebody say on the way out say that Mellencamp “closed for Fogerty.”