The recent John Fogerty concert at Save-on-Foods Memorial Arena brought out a mass of regular guys. Many in ball caps, their AC/DC t-shirts stretched across big, comfy-looking chests. Across the aisle to my right, 20 rows of wage-earning soldiers lounged for two solid hours with crossed arms, synchronized jumping knees, and broad, happy grins.
The concert set design boasted 10 screens of various sizes, popping with pertinent images and great pans of us in our seats. Walled-in as I was by men the size of refrigerators, I appreciated the help with the view.
With the aroma of weed sparking on the first note from the bayou, representing his Creedence Clearwater Revival days, off we went through hit after hit. The whole show was punctuated by thick, dry ice, plumes of it at times, and ended with columns of pyrotechnics and a very cool storm cloud of confetti.
When the first shockwave blast hit, I stuck in my earplugs. The pounding had charm, taking me back to the days when teenaged boys competed with each other by buying bigger and bigger speakers.
Fogerty’s not what I’d call sexy, but his music sure as hell can be. During an instrumental romp between Fogerty on harmonica and Kenny Aranoff’s ballistic bonking on the drums, I closed my eyes and let the music take me. With the rest of the band jumping in, the effect was a steamy, breathtaking few minutes.
As we filed out afterwards I noticed a bored expression on the face of maybe the only teenaged girl in the crowd. Poor John: he isn’t letting himself age gracefully, so if you can’t relate to his music there’s no sex-appeal default position.
This “fortunate son” rocked hard and we were happy “rollin’ down the open road” to hear him out. My adorably bulky seatmates summed up the concert with an awestruck proclamation: “This is right up there with the best of ’em, man!”