Advertisement

John Fogerty triumphs at Glastonbury

John Fogerty has just played the Glastonbury Jazz/ World Stage (June 23), only his second show in the UK since 1972. Coming on to massive applause and cheering, Fogerty looked very pleased to be here, saying: " It's beautiful to be here at Glastonbury. I'm so happy to be in England again. But I ain't here to do speeches, I'm here to play rock'n'roll!

Trending Now

John Fogerty has just played the Glastonbury Jazz/ World Stage (June 23), only his second show in the UK since 1972.

Coming on to massive applause and cheering, Fogerty looked very pleased to be here, saying: ” It’s beautiful to be here at Glastonbury. I’m so happy to be in England again. But I ain’t here to do speeches, I’m here to play rock’n’roll!

Advertisement

And then he launched into ‘Green River‘ – I spotted Glastonbury organiser Michael Eavis right at the very front – and he sounded amazing, his backing band playful and tight, keeping up with his guitar playing.

Fogerty introduced the next song, charmingly, as one that “has a bit of a fable about it. Many people thought I wrote this at Woodstock. In fact, that place looked a lot like this place, except you’re better looking and smarter too. In fact, it was when I went home that I wrote this…”

He then plays the perfect Glastonbury weekend song, ‘Who’ll Stop The Rain‘ and the singalong begins. I never quite realised before this show, quite how many songs Fogerty has written in the past.

Advertisement

The Californian multi-intsrumentalist then played for over an hour, each track involving a swift guitar change.

Highlights included ‘Bad Moon Rising‘,’Lookin’ Out My Back Door‘, ‘Down On The Corner‘and ‘Keep On Chooglin’‘.

He also threw in a cover of ‘Heard It Through The Grapevine‘ – a song Fogerty’s former band Creedence Clearwater Reveival used to play often as part of their repertoire. He played the extended CCR version, and it sounded brilliant. Plenty of piano, and a huge guitar outro.

When ‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain?‘ is played, the biggest singalong I’ve heard so far this weekend happened. Of course, the fact that it’s been raining all weekend and we were standing knee deep in mud, stuck to the spot watching this show, made it all the more apt. Perfect festival anthem.

For an encore, Fogerty blasted through his 1975 solo hit ‘Rockin’ All Over The World‘ – the song made globally famous by Status Quo when they recorded it in 1977.

I’ve definitely found the vibe of Glastonbury now, the atmosphere up at the Jazz/World Stage area was so chilled and relaxing.

On the way back round, I saw the fireworks shoot into the sky from The Killers‘ headline performance on the Pyramid Stage.

I also see an absolutely brilliant bit of Iggy Pop and the Stooges set at the Other Stage – I caught ‘1969‘, ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog‘ and ‘No Fun‘.

The newly reformed Stooges sounded better than Iggy’s solo shows have sounded in recent years, though that’s not bad considering that those shows have pretty consistently rocked too.

Off now to try and catch Madness, ahead of their main stage Knowsley Hall show tomorrow, just heard a rumour they will be appearing over in Lost Vagueness very soon.

I’ll let you know how it is in the morning.

Still a shame there was no CCR reunion, as was much rumoured, but hey Fogerty was simply great.

Advertisement
Advertisement

Latest Issue

Advertisement

Features

Advertisement