From Waz From Oz Uncirculated DAT Master

John Fogerty
Sydney Entertainment Centre
Sydney, New South Wales
Australia
12th November 1998

01. Swamp Introduction
02. Born On The Bayou
03. Green River
04. Lodi
05. Lookin’ Out My Back Door
06. Suzie Q
07. I Put A Spell On You
08. Premonition
09. Bring It On Down & Jelly Roll
10. Who’ll Stop The Rain
11. Rambunctious Boy
12. Up Around The Bend
13. Workin’ On The Building
14. Joy Of My Love
15. Blue Moon Lights
16. Centerfield
17. Down On The Corner
18. Jambalaya (On The Bayou)

19. Wrote A Song For Everyone
20. Have You Ever Seen The Rain?
21. Hot Rod Heart
22. Cottonfields
23. Midnight Special
24. Band Introductions
25. Old Man Down The Road
26. Rockin’ All Over The World
27. I Heard It Though The Grapevine
28. Bad Moon Risin’
29. Fortunate Son

Encores
30. Proud Mary
31. Travellin’ Band

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if burning to CD, suggested splits are:
CD1 = tracks 1 to 18
CD2 = tracks 19 to 31.

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The Band
John Fogerty – Vocals, Lead Guitar & Dobro
Michael Canipe – Rhythm Guitar
Johnny Lee Schell – Rhythm Guitar
Michael Cartellone – Drums
Bob Glaub – Bass Guitar


Tour Dates
Sydney Entertainment Centre, Sydney NSW 12th November 1998
Sydney Entertainment Centre, Sydney NSW 13th November 1998
Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Brisbane QLD 15th November 1998
WIN Entertainment Centre, Wollongong NSW 17th November 1998
Melbourne Park, Melbourne VIC 18th November 1998
Melbourne Park, Melbourne VIC 19th November 1998
Adelaide Entertainment Centre, Adelaide SA 21st November 1998

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Creedence in their heyday were big in Australia with every single from Proud Mary in 1969 to the last Someday Never Comes in 1972 making the Top 40 singles charts.
Same with the LPs from Cosmos Factory on.
Some achieved higher placings than in their homeland!
I was a big CCR fan so when a John Fogerty Tour was announced I dead set knew I had to go see him, was luckily enough to land 10th row seats.

This was the first time I’d laid eyes on John Fogerty since I saw the three-piece Creedence
(Sans Tom Fogerty) concert here in Sydney on the 13th February 1972. Tis a pity that I didn’t start taping live shows until 1973.

The stage back drop was decorated like a bayou setting at night, quite fetching I thought.
Then the intro music started up with what I’d describe as swamp like, you know the sound of swamp life at night with crickets chirping, bull frogs croaking, as that subsided John & the band launched into Born On The Bayou.
The stage lights weren’t fully on, yet which is why Big Knobs photos are rather dark as they were taken in the first two songs.
The man’s voice was as strong as it was during Creedence’s time, plus the sound that night was one of the best I’ve heard at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, no doubt thanks to his sound guy.
He was no slouch on the guitar either as well as energetic with him going all over the stage.

Straight off the bat we heard 6 Creedence classics, sounding similar to the recorded versions which I’m sure bothered nobody there that night.
I did however find Mr Fogerty’s audience banter somewhat condescending with him gushing sentences such as “Thanks so much for coming back to see me, it’s great to be here, I love this place, we’ve been having a good time over here”.
It sounded so prepared, especially seeing this was the first gig of the tour & he’d only flown in a day or two before.
Mr F made other cheesy comments throughout the show that I found cringe inducing, sorry John, I assume these lines were trotted out at every gig.
But as no recordings of any other Australian 1998 show has ever surfaced I’ll never know for sure.

As soon as the 1st song started, people got up to dance (who can blame them with the beat of these songs) plus running up to the front but as usual the SEC ushers instantly pounced on these law breakers putting an end to that.
Most on the floor stood for the show, only sitting again for the slower quieter numbers, I remember at times during this gig many sections on the floor undulating in their seats or in front of them.
By the last few numbers before the encore’s folks had started to disobey SEC staff streaming to the front, far too many for the SEC goons to deal with so there they stayed.

For Workin' On A Building, Joy Of My Life & Blue Moon Nights John & the whole band moved further to the front of the stage to perform in intimate mode.
If I remember correctly John played dobro on these songs.
For me personally his solo material didn’t grab me……man….. as much as the Creedence songs did that night, they certainly weren’t unpleasant, and I have to admit they didn’t seem out of place amongst the Creedence material.
But I do agree with the SMH reviewer that at this point the show started to sag, however the audience didn’t seem to share our view.

I did some research & found that many of John Fogerty’s solo albums / singles had also charted here in Australia so to many audience members his solo material was well known,
in fact, the most noticeable yelled out song requests are……. you guessed it for John Fogerty solo songs!

After introducing Rockin’ All Over The World John says although he wrote this song many years ago it was some other guys that had a hit record with it.
Those some other guys were of course Status Quo, maybe it hurts Mr Fogerty’s mouth to mention their name.
After this song ended from my seat I could see in the front row a kid with his parents, John caught the kids attention then threw his guitar pick to him, but adults the utter bastards that they are caught it instead.
Whether out of guilt or not it was later handed to the kid, the adult’s behaviour was a chance for John to bring up Australia’s past of being settled by convicts.
BTW It’s true about convicts being transported to Australia for stealing a loaf of bread but being sentenced to 35 years for doing so is an over exaggeration!

You can forgive John's occasional lyric slip like the line forgetting what giants do in Lookin’ Out My Back Door, (they’re doing cartwheels if you can recall).
But he makes up for it during Bad Moon Rising when he sings in the 2nd chorus the often-mistaken lyric “There’s a bathroom on the right” instead of the true lyric “There’s a bad moon on the rise”.
I love the little yeah that can be heard by a fellow concert goer when he finishes the misheard lyrics.
Nice to know that someone else besides myself picked up on it.
I might have been spotted recording by another attendee during the crowd calling for more as after Fortunate Son at 04.12 he can be heard be saying 'something something recording'.

It’s an excellent recording, there’s no beat clapping, there’s very little audience chatter to be heard.
I attended this concert with another now departed friend Gary & his then girlfriend who sat on either side of me to shield me from not only close talkers (thankfully there weren’t any) but also from the ever-present pesky EC ushers patrolling the aisles.
However, there are two bursts of static that are on the original DAT, they can’t be removed,
they appear in Track 4 Lodi at 00.11 & in Track 6 I Put A Spell On You at 02.20.

What the recording doesn’t capture is the fact that this was a very enthusiastic audience.
We were in the front middle section in the 10th row, many sections behind us were singing but for some reason not so much in the floor sections (which in hindsight was a blessing).
This can be heard on Cottonfields as the audience basically sing the song, but they sound so far away, much further away than they actually were.

Fogerty has toured here three times since this tour.
His next appearance on Australian soil was in 2005.
The Sydney gig was at the Opera House where I watched from seats in a box overlooking the stage.
The usher who is assigned to open the box door to let people in or out of the box sits inside with the patrons when their services are not required.
Unfortunately his seat was next to mine.
The only option I had was to not record the show & to enjoy it as an ordinary punter.
I’d rather see the show than to be evicted from the venue for taping.
For Fogerty’s Australian 2008 tour I was overseas & for his final Australian tour in 2012 I was in hospital.

All up it was a very enjoyable concert that still gets repeated playing’s in the Waz household.

Thanks again to audiowhore.
Enjoy,
Waz


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