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Review by Wolfgang Vornhof from Düsseldorf / Germany:
[F.l.to r.: The Author Wolfgang, Cosmo and friend Klaus]
On Friday, June 19 me and my friend - long time CCR fan Klaus Wilms -
met at 4 p.m. when Klaus picked me up at my office. We drove to my home where I changed
clothes and we had a little snack. Then at about 5 p.m. we were heading for Bonn. While
driving to Bonn we were listening to John' s new CD "Premonition" and discussing
if we met Stu and Doug and the other guys after the show as Stu had promised me via
e-mail. We arrived one hour later due to heavy traffic around Cologne. In front of the box
office we met Ralf Eckertz and Lutz Altnorthoff who created the beautiful German CCR
fanpage. Ralf and I had exchanged e-mails during the weeks before the CCRev concert in
Bonn and had decided to meet at their show in Bonn. We were on the guest list and received
press tickets to find out a little bit later that these were not the official backstage
passes. Well, I thought: "Let's wait and see".
At 6.30 we could enter the venue which is located at the "Museumsmeile". Inside
the venue there were a few hot-dog and beer-stands. First thing we did was buying the tour
T-shirt which wears the CCRev logo of their CD "Recollection". When we walked up
in front of the stage to check out CCRev's gear we suddenly saw a very familiar face which
belonged to John Tristao. We introduced ourselves, shook hands with John, were given
autographs and took pictures. He is a very nice and humourous guy. He was very surprised
and delighted and thanked me several times when I gave him a signed CD of my own
non-professional band which is called "LOADED DICE". We stayed directly in the
first row in front of the stage where of course all of the fanclub members were.
[Wolfgang and John Tristao with Loaded Dice CD!]
At about 7.20 p.m. Robbie Bayer entered the stage and started singing
his songs. He had no back up band. He started with a song acompanying himself with just a
bass guitar. Robbie sang and played very well. His songs are more or less in the singer
songwriter tradition but I liked them and the reaction of the audience was moderate. After
half an hour or so he finished his programme and the stage was prepared for CCRev.
At about 8.10 p.m. CCRev entered the stage waving their hands towards
the audience while the audience was applauding wildly. Then we heard a dark swampy sound
over the big P.A. system which was followed by the announcer's voice as he said:
"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Creedence Clearwater Revisited." After
this Elliot played the first intro-notes of this famous E7 chord of "Born on the
Bayou". When Doug and Stu and the rest of the band joined him I was nearly blown away
by this huge and powerful sound. I knew they were very good, because I had seen them in
Cologne in 1996 but this time it was incredible. They played and acted as an entire band
and not like a solo artist with hired musicians who back him up.
They played all the songs which are included on their double live CD
"Recollection" plus "Molina" in the second encore. The set list
consisted of the following songs:
- Born on the bayou
- Green river
- Lodi, which Stu introduced as "a town Doug and I thought we' d
never get out of"
- Commotion
- Who'll stop the rain
- Suzy Q
- Hey tonight
- Long as I can see the light
- Down on the corner
- Looking out my backdoor
- Cotton fields
- Tombstone shadow
- I heard it through the grapevine
- Midnight special
- Bad moon rising
- Proud Mary
- I put a spell on you
- Fortunate son
First encore:
- Have you ever seen the rain
- Travelin' band
Second encore:
- Run through the jungle
- Molina
- Up around the bend
During the concert the crowd was singing along from the first song and
when the atmosphere grew better and better I heard the audience shout "CCR, CCR"
between songs and the encore for the first time. The audience consisted mostly of the
"baby boomer generation" (between 30 and 50) but there were also a lot of young
people there. Directly in front of the stage I watched three or four girls between 15 and
20 dancing to the music and having a great time.
The band definitely had a great time on stage. Elliot Easton was
introduced by Stu as "on monster guitar" which is true as he really is an
extraordinary axman. John Tristao had to fill the big shoes according to Stu. Steve Gunner
was introduced on keyboard, accoustic rhythm guitar, harmony vocals and percussion. The
audience was clapping their hands like crazy when Stu introduced Doug as the original
drummer of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Doug left his place behind the drum set to
introduce Stu Cook as the original bass guitarist of Creedence Clearwater Revival. Doug
said that Stu and him had met when they were thirteen years old and had been friends for
40 years now that meant four decades and we could easily find out now how old they were.
He continued that he had never grown up which necessarily did not mean that he was not
able of doing certain things but in his mind he still was 21 years old.
One highlight of this concert - when you can speak of it, because this
show itself was one highlight - was the long guitar solo during "Grapevine"
which ended into a lengthy jam session with Stu playing a solo on his bass guitar. People
who said CCR was only able to play hit songs which lasted only two or three minutes were
proven false because these guys can jam! But of course we knew that! They simply rocked
the place.
Elliot played two Fender Custom Shop Stratocasters - a white one for
the regular tuned songs and green one for the D tuned songs starting with
"Grapevine", "Midnight special", "Bad moon rising" and
"Proud Mary". Unlike two years ago in Cologne where he had used a Marshall and a
Fender amp, he used two Peavey 5150 amps - the so called Eddie van Halen amplifier - with
two 4x12" Marshall cabinets. John Tristao played a Fender Thinline Telecaster - the
one he is pictured with on the album sleeve - and a Fender Twin Reverb Amp. Stu played the
white Modulus Graphite bass guitar with five strings which - he said in the Bass Player
interview - he is married to. He had a rack amp system and a big Ampeg cabinet with
8x10" speakers, I guess. Doug played a red drum set whose origin I could not
research. It was not the black YAMAHA set he played two years ago in Cologne. Steve played
a Taylor accoustic guitar, several percussion instruments and a Korg keyboard.
The show ended after the last chord of "Up around the bend".
The band members put down their instruments and were hugging each other, then they threw
towels, drumsticks and picks into the wild audience. Finally they made a line with Stu and
Doug in the middle, bowed and waved the crowd a final good-by.
Now came the most exciting part of this event as we knew that most of
us did not have the right backstage passes. For a while we stayed with the other fan club
members in front of the stage discussing the incredible show we had just seen and waiting
for things to come. I looked across the stage and saw John Tristao. I waved at him and
when he saw this he waved back into our direction. Then Robert Aerts started walking to
the left side of the stage towards a security man and we followed him. Shortly after we
had arrived there Stu Cook came to take us backstage. When the security guy asked who was
allowed to come backstage Stu simply said: "All of them!" We even did not have
to show our passes.
Backstage we shook hands with Stu and and the other band members and
introduced ourselves. Although Stu had led us backstage there was another security guy who
did not want us to approach the other band members. When Stu came back with a case of ice
cold beers he saw this and he said it was o.k. and he would like to join us. Later that
evening I talked with the guy and he told me that he did not understand at all what was
going on there. Poor guy!
In a very relaxed and familiar atmosphere we talked with our
"heroes", took pictures, were given autographs and drank some ice cold beers
with them. They gave us autographs wherever we wanted them. There was one guy who had a
lot of tattoos and on his back there was a tattoo which showed the cover of the
"Pendulum" album. Underneath Stu and Doug had given him their autographs and the
guy had directly gone to the tattoo shop to have tattooed their autographs. That guy was a
show himself.
I gave every band member the CD of my band and they were surprised and
delighted and thanked me several times. René Inemmee who was als backstage did the same
with the CD of his Revival Band. When I gave one to Elliot he told me: "Hey, that's
the one you gave to John". So John must have shown it to the other band members. I
had my "Recollection" CD signed, my old CCR songbook and the "Chronicle
II" album on which Doug wrote "Wolfgang, this is for you" because on this
picture he is pointing at the viewer. We stayed backstage for almost one hour and then it
was time for us to leave and let the band have their well deserved rest. It was a little
boy's dream become true to meet the band we have admired so much since the days of our
youth for almost 30 years now. When Klaus and I drove home we were still very impressed
and felt like having been to heaven.
It was a wonderful evening and definitely a night to remember!!! Thank
you, thank you, thank you Stu, Doug, Elliot, John and Steve!!!
[Klaus, Stu and Wolfgang]
Thanks to Wolfgang Vornhof for this review!
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