Creedence Clearwater Revival Live at the Royal Albert Hall Documentary

 

Finally found the time to check this out on Netflix after seeing everyone rave about it on social media. Of course, I've been a fan of CCR since "Proud Mary" (almost) topped the charts - and the many other (often better) hits that followed - and while I have most, if not all, of the official records, I don't believe that I've seen any footage of a full concert before.

The first half hour or so of this is basically a documentary about the band told through interviews with the gents while on their first European tour - a super exciting time for any band, much less one of the biggest bands in the world at the time! No big revelations, but nice to hear everyone giving their two cents with plenty of old photos of the guys, some other live footage and a good overview of the band up until this point.

The live show is the selling point here, though, and it's a fantastic greatest hits concert - and they had plenty of hits at this time! Fogerty gets an amazing sound out of a Kustom Amp - no idea how he does it - and he even runs his harp thru the same Kustom and sounds great! The band was a terrific blues rock combo - simple, but not simplistic - great sounds, Fogerty has an incredible voice and the songs sound essentially like the records - minus any horns'n'such, of course.

Wild that this was in the 69/70 era where spacey jams were the de rigueur - while CCR may jam a bit, it is all in a basic, blues rock format - very rootsy and very different from the average combo at the time, but, of course, the 60' and early 70's were a time when you could get away with almost anything. Kinda funny to see hippie dancing to roots rock, tho!

The filming is excellent - a pro, multi-camera shot - and the sound is perfect, as well - I don't know the history of this project, but it seems like it was always planned as a film/recording release, although it took however many decades for it to happen

Love this band, love their sound and love them live - everyone has been raving about this and rightfully so - watch it, get it, dig it!