Show day for the Fogerty's

Tuesday, we headed to the bus to find the 24' banner hanging all off the bus and fluttering in disarray.  We got it put back together, but it made us about 10 minutes late to meet the band.  We were right on time to meet John and Julie as we had a bicycle officer escorting us through the Wynn property to their villa.  Our uber driver this morning warned us of 50 mph winds coming later in the day.

Our first stop was at ABC studios, where they interviewed John and he played a couple of songs on the bus, Bad Moon Rising and Proud Mary.  Julie had my iPhone so she could adjust the volume of the Credence Clearwater music we had playing.  Right as they were getting ready to go live, and people are counting down 5-4-3-2-1 to the live moment, the music switches from CCR to some of the most hard-core Burning Man rave shit you've ever heard and people are yelling for me to fix it!  I don't think that was my music, but however it happened, I got it stopped and they made their live video in time.

After ABC, we went to CBS and did more of the same there.  There's no way we could get tired of hearing John Fogerty playing his songs on our bus.  At one point, I asked John if there really was a Willie and the Poor Boys.  As any Credence fan would know, Willie and the Poor Boys are referenced in the song, Down on the Corner.  His face lit up and he said he wrote it around the time of the birth of their oldest daughter.  They were reading a lot of Winnie the Pooh and he originally wrote "Winnie and the Pooh boys" but ended up changing it to Willie and the Poor Boys.

Tomorrow, our great friends, Bill and Mary Lynn Coffee come to town from LA to hang for the evening with us and see the show.  We can't wait to see them and spend some great time together.   So, on Wednesday afternoon, Bill and Mary Lynn flew in to see us and the show.  What a special treat that was to spend time with them.  The Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion continues to open up the road for our karma to do it's best.

At 1:45, we met about 8 people and filed into the theatre to watch John and the band do their soundcheck.  That was really cool, as you could feel their anguish or satisfaction as things unfolded.  We got to hear him play Everyday People, Shane's rendition of Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner and Tyler's slant on My Generation.  They also did Suzy Q and Run Through the Jungle among a few others.  After that, his guitar tech, Dave brought out all ten of his guitars to give us some background on them.  One is shaped like a baseball bat and "only plays one song"...Centerfield.  His Acme guitar that he played at Woodstock is part of the set as well as '58 Les Paul, a Gibson 175, a Custom Les Paul with a blue plaid design to mimic his signature blue plaid shirt in his shows.   The baseball bat guitar ended up being destroyed in a flood of one of their storage places.  This led John to have three of them made so he never goes without it again.



The show was awesome!  John played so many hits, Suzy Q, Bad Moon Rising, Proud Mary, Down on the Corner, Run Through the Jungle, Green River, Born on the Bayou, Who'll Stop the Rain, Hey Tonight, Have You Ever Seen the Rain, and Centerfield...among other great songs.  It was great to see John playing with his (mostly) young band, who all shined in their own ways.  Both of John's sons, Shane and Tyler, performed very well.  Shane did a very cool electric guitar Hendrix-version of the Star Spangled Banner and Tyler sang The Who's My Generation.  Bob, the keyboard player was an amazing keys player!  Nathan Collins on saxophone kicked some serious ass as well did the rest of the band.

Here are a few photos and clips of the gig...







Here is some video from the last couple of days...

https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/bc8ad016-45cd-4f9a-b20b-54eda93f4311?token=812dc7de-3b71-43f8-9251-50d94d92231c

https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/0bd34511-098f-47d8-b55e-d7b40a77d91a?token=7ef8ca27-e64b-4364-b369-ba4f207d109a

https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/5ce54ceb-d891-479e-893d-21295e4c443d?token=41eba397-9056-47dd-bbc6-cc58e6df2278

https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/2452f69d-679b-4433-bfa5-3b1b4b73f8f8?token=7ef8ca27-e64b-4364-b369-ba4f207d109a

This was a great week, and we were thrilled to spend some of it with our wonderful friends, Bill and Mary Lynn.  We also much enjoyed hanging with the Fogerty's and their friends and bandmates.

Cheers,

David

Las Vegas with the Fogerty's

About a month ago, I was contacted by a producer out of LA, who said he was doing a documentary about a musical icon from the 60's and 70's, and would we potentially have an interest in being involved with Sugaree.  Kelly and I laughed, speculating about which washed-up one-hit wonder it might be.  I asked who the icon was, and it was John Fogerty of Credence Clearwater Revival!  Hell yes, we're interested, I said!  Then, on Thursday of last week, Kelly and I packed up Sugaree and began the 1,200 mile journey to Las Vegas, where he is ready to begin a 10-day residency at the Wynn Encore Theatre.  The trip here was nice, and we stopped in Albuquerque, Sedona and then Vegas.

Our first night in Vegas was fun.  Kelly and I had a nice dinner on the strip, and afterward, we went into the Paris Hotel to do a little gambling (which I have no business doing because I suck at it).  As is often the case when we travel in Sugaree, we say we are riding on the Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion, because it often seems that the yellow brick road is laid out before us and things seem to go so perfectly.  Along these lines, I killed it in blackjack and won about $400.  I gave about a hundred back to the roulette wheel, but we still walked out with a few extra hundreds in my pocket that we didn't have when we came there.

Yesterday, we met John and his family and band in Primm, NV, about 40 minutes outside of Las Vegas, where they were doing their rehearsals.  As we walked up to the door, we could hear him playing Born on the Bayou.  Soon, his brother Bob, brought us into the rehearsal studio to hear him play Susie Q.  Once rehearsals were done, John and his wife, Julie came out to the bus to check it out.  Soon, their two sons, Tyler and Shane were there as well...they are in John's band, which is very cool.  The Fogerty's are very much a family operation, and we love that about them.

This morning, we met John and his band at the Wynn Hotel and affixed a long banner to the side of the bus saying "John Fogerty 50 Year Trip", as he is celebrating 50 years since his show at Woodstock.  His wife, Julie saw all of the Grateful Dead stuff in our bus and told the story of how the Grateful Dead ruined Credence Clearwater Revival's debut at Woodstock because the Dead were all so stoned on acid that it took them HOURS to set up their equipment.  By the time the Dead had finished their rambling set, it was 3:00 in the morning, and most of the audience was sound asleep and missed CCR.  By the Dead's own admission, Woodstock was one of their worst live shows ever.

Speaking of Woodstock, Julie told us an interesting story.  The guitar that John played at Woodstock was named Acme by John, because he had installed an electric pickup in it and painted Acme above it as a joke.  When Credence Clearwater Revival was breaking up, John gave the guitar to a young kid and that was the last he ever saw of it for over forty years!  Then, Julie somehow found it and bought it back and surprised John with it.  He will be playing Acme at the 50th Woodstock shows in Upstate New York this summer.







Once we loaded the band onto the bus, we headed to Fox 5 News, where they interviewed John in the bus and he played an acoustic version of Proud Mary.  As that was occurring, our friend David Redding texted me to tell me that he saw us from Dallas.



After the news gig, we headed to Veteran's Village, which is a transitional housing development for veterans run by a wonderful man named Arnold Stalk.  Arnold provides transitional and permanent housing for over 200 veterans and their families and has a food pantry, crisis and mental health services, a salon and a community garden where they grow vegetables. Arnold is also developing container housing, where they take old shipping containers and convert them to housing for our veterans.  At 20' or 40' long, they are a great home when Arnold's team is done making them into tiny homes.  He is currently working on his first cluster of 20 container homes.  John Fogerty served our country in the army, so he and Julie definitely have a great respect for those who served for US.



When Arnold toured us through Veterans Village, he took us to their salon, where they have a stylist there to give residents a make-over.  When we dropped in, there was a woman getting her hair done that probably hadn't been to a salon in many years.  Arnold said that when she arrived at Veteran's Village a week ago, she couldn't even look people in the eyes.  When we dropped in, she was having her hair done and she looked beautiful and you could see that her confidence was back.




It's a beautiful thing they are doing at Veteran's Village.  It was very clear that there were many needy residents here getting their needs met.  There was a real sense of community and pride about the people who lived at Veteran's Village and hats off to a wonderful person like Arnold Stalk, who is changing lives, one at a time.  If you're so inclined to donate to this awesome organization, their website is http://vvlv.org.  Anything you can give would be much appreciated!





After we left Veteran's Village, we drove Sugaree down the Las Vegas strip honking our new loud-as-shit train horn that we had installed right before we left, and generally causing a rock-n-roll ruckus.  It was a great day and we were so happy to have been a part of it!  Now, we wait to see what tomorrow will bring...