Nov 15 2014 – Legendary rocker John Fogerty, the driving force behind Creedence Clearwater Revival, performed at Oshawa’s GM Centre on Friday night. Fogerty is in the midst of an extended east to west tour of Canada entitled One Extraordinary Year in reference to 1969, CCR’s breakout year. CCR released three albums in 1969, unheard of today when an album every other year is more typical. In March of ’69 they released their second album, Bayou Country, that featured Proud Mary, Born On The Bayou, Bad Moon Rising and Lodi. In August they released Green River and in November they released Willie And The Poor Boys which featured Down On The Corner, Fortunate Son and a cover of Lead Belly’s Midnight Special. Their fifth album Cosmo’s Factory came out in January 1970 and included Travelin’ Band, Lookin’ Out My Back Door, Run Through The Jungle, Up Around The Bend, Who’ll Stop The Rain, a cover of Smokey Robinson’s I Heard It Through the Grapevine and Long As I Can See The Light. That’s an unbelievable 14 of their 20 track Greatest Hits album Chronicle released in less than 12 months. An extraordinary year indeed.
The night was a trip back in time. With no opening act to divert away attention, the show was preceded by a video of Fogerty’s memories of growing up in the San Francisco Bay area, which was surprising when he’s known for songs like Born On The Bayou and a southern roots sound, a Louisiana heritage would have been expected. Born On The Bayou led off the show with a video playing of an early CCR performance on a curtain in front of the stage. After the first verse, the curtain was raised and the band continued the song on stage.
Fogerty, now 69 years old, had the crowd on their feet dancing and singing along several times. He took time between songs to tell anecdotes like when CCR took the stage at 2:30am at Woodstock after the Grateful Dead lulled the audience to sleep. In another, he rolled out a couple guitar stands with about 8 guitars each and sampled some of them. Backing Fogerty was Kenny Aronoff on drums, Bob Malone on keyboards, son Shane Fogerty on guitar, James Lomenzo on bass and Devon Pangle on guitar.
For people of a certain age, it was a trip down memory lane as CCR dominated 70’s rock radio, even long after CCR had split up. And those folks were out in droves, as far as could be determined, the GM Centre was completely sold out. In all, the band played an astonishing 28 songs and kept the crowd entertained throughout, often on their feet dancing and singing along.
As mentioned, the show was at the GM Centre one of our favourite venues. Great sight lines from every seat in the house, great sound (aside from one brief glitch) and (for an arena) very reasonably priced beer ($6.50). Although pay parking lots surround the arena, plenty of free parking can be found nearby.
Set List
Born on the Bayou
Travelin’ Band
Up Around the Bend
Who’ll Stop the Rain
Night Time Is the Right Time (Roosevelt Sykes cover)
Sweet Hitch-Hiker
Lookin’ Out My Back Door
Joy of My Life
Midnight Special (Lead Belly cover)
Keep On Chooglin’
Hey Tonight
New Orleans (Gary “U.S.” Bonds cover)
Lodi
Green River
Mystic Highway
Hot Rod Heart
Ramble Tamble
Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On (Big Maybelle cover)
Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu (Johnny Rivers cover)
Long as I Can See the Light
I Heard It Through the Grapevine (Smokey Robinson & The Miracles cover)
Bad Moon Rising
Down on the Corner
Centerfield
The Old Man Down the Road
Fortunate Son
Encore:
Have You Ever Seen the Rain?
Proud Mary
Our photographs are normally central to our reviews of an event. In fact they’re the primary reason for the review, it’s a vehicle to deliver the photos. However in this case, since no photo pass was possible for this show, the accompanying photographs were provided by Live Nation. We thank Live Nation for the photos.
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