John Fogerty

There were a lot of years, says John Fogerty, when he wouldn't play the songs of his former band Creedence Clearwater Revival. Thankfully, all that has changed.

For this tour, Fogerty has not only embraced his back catalogue, but is performing a different Creedence album in its entirety each night.| Melbourne got the hit-laden Cosmo's Factory, but at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, it was what Fogerty called his "favourite album of that time", 1969's Green River.

Opening with the title track, it was immediately apparent Fogerty had renewed passion for the material and loved wringing every shrill note from the neck of his golden Gibson guitar.

"I am just so doggone happy to be here," he declared, and it showed. Fogerty smiled and stomped, ran and jumped around the stage like a teenager, and his enthusiasm was infectious.

As he worked through each track in the order of the original album on a stage decorated to look like an old theatre, three giant video screens screened vintage footage to illustrate the turmoil of the times which inspired the songs.

There were missile launches and traffic jams for the frenetic Commotion. David Santos played electric double bass on the more bluesy, gypsy-inspired Tombstone Shadow, and Fogerty's voice rang through as clear, crisp and twangy as ever on Wrote a Song for Everyone, with its protest march footage.

A very up-tempo, jaunty rendition of Bad Moon Rising had the audience hollering and howling along, the jangling ?Lodi? took it on a rollicking road trip, and there was train onscreen to match the clickety-clack rhythm of Cross-Tie Walker.

Thundering drums by fellow rock legend Kenny Aronoff underpinned Fogerty's anguished guitar solo and anti-war sentiments on Sinister Purpose, before the album came to a close with the big, bold blues swagger of The Night Time is the Right Time.

From there, it was on to the hits, metaphorically as well as literally. Fogerty strapped on a baseball bat-shaped guitar to accompany the homerun footage on Centerfield, with its big Hammond keyboard washes by Bob Malone, who also put down some fabulous honky-tonk piano on Bring it Down to Jelly Roll.

There were swamp projections and green lights for Born on the Bayou, footage of Uluru for Hot Rod Heart, and even John Wayne for the Eagles-like Gunslinger.

The dramatically drawn-out intro to Midnight Special drew a huge response and had the crowd on its feet, before guitarist James Intveld showed some fancy fretwork on the more folksy Blue Moon Night.

Not to be outdone, Fogerty pulled out a Van Halen-style, finger-tapping electric guitar solo to lead into the psychedelic kaleidoscope effects of Keep On Chooglin, before switching to harmonica for some electrifying interplay with Aronoff's drums.

Between leading the audience on a big singalong for Have You Ever Seen The Rain, rockin' and rollin' on Travellin' Band and doing the hand-jive with Willie and the Poor Boys, Fogerty threw in unexpected, high-energy cover versions of Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman and Robert Palmer's Bad Case of Loving You.

His rumbling 1980s comeback hit The Old Man Down The Road led perfectly into the youthful anger of Fortunate Son and joyful encores of Rocking All Over The World and Proud Mary.

If only he could stay for a week to run through all those other CCR albums track-by-track. Oh well, maybe next time: Fogerty doesn't show any signs of slowing down soon.

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