John Fogerty The Blue Ridge Rangers

So many of John Fogerty's songs are like time machines. By the time the first three notes ring out, my mind has already pulled up some long-forgotten memory. And since I was one of the younger people in the crowd at Sunday night's (Nov. 22) show at the Ryman Auditorium, I can only imagine what the rest of the crowd was thinking. The hits came one after the other, sometimes making it hard to remember the last song he played as the next one started working its magic.

I do remember that his two-hour set flew by, of course including Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Down on the Corner," "Fortunate Son," "Born on the Bayou," "Bad Moon Rising," "Lodi" -- that list keeps going for a while. And we had a lot fun singing along to "Have You Ever Seen the Rain." But some of my favorite songs were the tracks off his excellent The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again album. John Prine's "Paradise," Phil Everly's "When Will I Be Loved" and Rick Nelson's "Garden Party" (featuring a guest appearance by Nelson's son, Gunnar) -- with songs like those, even a tired-sounding Fogerty would have been memorable, but that was far from the case.

At 64 years old, he could pass for 30 onstage. He ran almost constantly and strutted for the crowd like it was 1970, looking like he was having a ball. I was keeping an eye on his guitar, too, since he said in The Tennessean that he felt like a real picker now, and I was genuinely impressed. Not just by the solos that he took, which ranged from just-like-the-recorded-version to improvisations, but by the simple fact that he played every one of the signature licks. It seems like many performers delegate those iconic phrases to sidemen as they get on in their years, but not Fogerty. By the time he started the intro to "Centerfield," everyone on the floor was up and dancing in between the pews, difficult as that may be. I've seen quite a few remarkable shows this year, but I think this one takes the cake in terms of carefree fun. After one more singalong on "Proud Mary," the crowd filed out -- with big grins and more stories to tell -- back into 2009.