Playing all the Hits: John Fogerty and George Thorogood at Pine Knob, August 4, 2024

John Fogert at Pine Knob, August 4, 2024

I've written previously about my childhood rock heroes: The Beatles. Bruce. And John Fogerty. Fogerty, and CCR, was a taste a acquired largely during my first years in college, when I graduated from the Fantasy Records "More Gold" compilation I had bought as a kid to the entire original Fantasy catalogue in 3 neat double albums, creatively titled "1989/69," "1969" and "1970," and then finally daring to purchase the lamentable "Mardi Gras" and Fogerty's first two solo albums as cut-outs. Eventually I even located the pre-CCR "Golliwogs" singles on another Fantasy collection. 

Still, it's been a decade since I last saw John play live. Oh, he's been around, but typically sharing the stage with performers I had no desire to see, even performing as an opening act. I wanted the full treatment, and last night I got it.

Fogerty's "Celebration" tour came to Pine Knob last night -- the "celebration" is for Fogerty regaining ownership of his own songs. Nearly 40 years ago, Fogerty was famously sued by former Fantasy executive Saul Zaentz for plagiarizing himself with the song "Old Man Down the Road." Finally, in 2023 Fogerty acquired a majority stake in his CCR catalogue and, well, he's pretty happy about it. As he said at the start of the concert last night, he had a lot of hits and he intended to play them all.

Before getting to John Fogerty, though, we had two opening acts: First, Hearty Har, fronted by two of Fogerty's children, Shane (who looks exacly like young John) and Tyler (who sounds a whole lot like young John. Then George Thorogood and the Destroyers, with an playful run through 9 of his bettern known songs, capped of course by "Bad to the Bone." I'd never seen Thorogood before, and seeing him work the slide -- and the crowd -- was a treat.

Centerfield. Pine Knob, August 4, 2024

Fogerty took the stage at 9:30pm, and at 11pm curfew-limited Pine Knob, that meant a 90 minute set. John is pretty much playing the exact same setlist every night, so I knew what was coming -- a crackling opener of "Bad Moon Rising," leading off a suite of 6 consecutive CCR songs. At age 79, John's grown is long gone, but he can still sing the songs in the original upper register keys.

Backed by the Hearty Har ensemble in the sweltering heat of Pine Knob while dressed in jeans and his trademark long-sleever flannel shirt, Fogerty cracked out 21 hits -- including 16 Credence numbers and the otherwise obscure Golliwogs number "Fight Fire" -- as well as just 4 of his post-Credence solo numbers. Yet he seemed the most content when performing "Joy of My Life," an ode to his wife Julie, who was seated in the wings on stage, and which was the only song in the entire set that was newer than the 1985 "Centerfield" album. "Fight Fire" was the oldest original song in the set (John also performed a brief version of Leadbelly's "Cotton Fields"), dating all the way back to 1966. It's guitar riff is identical to The Young Rascals' "Find Somebody," recorded and released a year later.

Did he play all the hits? No, not quite. "Travelin' Band" was cut for time; the band left the stage at about 10 seconds to 11pm. A few other notables were also left out, but that also left room for John to include two of the greatest tracks from "Willy and the Poorboys": "It Came Out of the Sky" and Effigy." And, oh boy did they cook. "It Came Out of the Sky," ostensibly a silly story about a farmer encountering a meteorite, features John's wickedly ironic way to sum up the political situation n a single line: "Ronnie the Populist said it was a Communist plot." The names and details have changed, but somehow the story remains the same, still wrapped in golden chains.