John Fogerty Still Doing It Right
Our lead singer from Creedence Again (Dan McGuinness) wanted to make sure I witnessed his musical hero in the flesh, and took me to Chicago's Northerly Island (formerly Miegs Field airport) last night to see Willie Nelson open for John Fogerty. I'm glad he did.
This was my first time seeing Willie live; Without too much comment (a lot of empty seats during his show), I did find it interesting how rarely the guy puts the lyrics where they're supposed to be inside the songs. He seems to like to rush through a line until the band eventually catches up, almost daring his players to guess where the top of the measure is. If he wasn't the legendary songwriter and star he is, doing that stuff would get him fired from a band real quick. He did surprise me with one of my favorite instrumentals by my favorite guitarist of all time: "Nuages" by Django Reinhardt. Regardless, a topic I heard discussed while waiting for Fogerty to play was how Willie is pretty long in the tooth, just going through the motions, probably burnt out on playing those same old songs over and over, messing with the performance just to keep himself from going bonkers from boredom. While that might be true, exactly the same thing could be said about John Fogerty. I'm happy to say, however, that couldn't be farther from the truth.
Fogerty just had a 60-something birthday, so he's no spring chicken. But the guy was hitting all those sky-high notes beautifully, playing solid guitar, and pacing or skipping across the stage, too. And with John Mellencamp's old drummer (Kenny Aranoff?) behind him, the band absolutely killed.
It was also a treat for me to hear Dan singing along on just about every word, in tune and also hitting all those high notes - with me in the middle. In my opinion, although Dan doesn't really sound much like John Fogerty, he's on the same level of pure vocal ability. For the record, here's my dream concert that would feature some of my favorite rock singers onstage together: Fogerty, Bob Seger, Roger Daltrey, Paul Rodgers, Paul McCartney and Dan McGuinness. Death by killer vocals!
The only multimedia video piece I saw was during his solo version of "Deja Vu." I wish I knew someone from the Fogerty camp; I would encourage them to use the piece I cut for Dan McGuinness' version of it (much more interesting & powerful, in my opinion).
This was my first time seeing Willie live; Without too much comment (a lot of empty seats during his show), I did find it interesting how rarely the guy puts the lyrics where they're supposed to be inside the songs. He seems to like to rush through a line until the band eventually catches up, almost daring his players to guess where the top of the measure is. If he wasn't the legendary songwriter and star he is, doing that stuff would get him fired from a band real quick. He did surprise me with one of my favorite instrumentals by my favorite guitarist of all time: "Nuages" by Django Reinhardt. Regardless, a topic I heard discussed while waiting for Fogerty to play was how Willie is pretty long in the tooth, just going through the motions, probably burnt out on playing those same old songs over and over, messing with the performance just to keep himself from going bonkers from boredom. While that might be true, exactly the same thing could be said about John Fogerty. I'm happy to say, however, that couldn't be farther from the truth.
Fogerty just had a 60-something birthday, so he's no spring chicken. But the guy was hitting all those sky-high notes beautifully, playing solid guitar, and pacing or skipping across the stage, too. And with John Mellencamp's old drummer (Kenny Aranoff?) behind him, the band absolutely killed.
It was also a treat for me to hear Dan singing along on just about every word, in tune and also hitting all those high notes - with me in the middle. In my opinion, although Dan doesn't really sound much like John Fogerty, he's on the same level of pure vocal ability. For the record, here's my dream concert that would feature some of my favorite rock singers onstage together: Fogerty, Bob Seger, Roger Daltrey, Paul Rodgers, Paul McCartney and Dan McGuinness. Death by killer vocals!
The only multimedia video piece I saw was during his solo version of "Deja Vu." I wish I knew someone from the Fogerty camp; I would encourage them to use the piece I cut for Dan McGuinness' version of it (much more interesting & powerful, in my opinion).
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