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Getting CCRed not as pleasing as being Loverboy’d

Towards the end of Creedence Clearwater Revisited’s set at CannaFest, fans began chanting “CCR.”
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Kurt Griffey of Creedence Clearwater Revisited rocks out on guitar at CannaFest. (Chelsea Novak/Castlegar News)

Towards the end of Creedence Clearwater Revisited’s set at CannaFest on Saturday, fans began chanting “CCR.”

It was an easy enough mistake to make — both Stu Cook and Doug “Cosmo” Clifford, original members of CCR, were on stage and every song the band played — each one an original CCR song — sounded pretty much exactly like a CCR fan would expect it to, minus John Fogerty’s vocals.

But a member of the band tried to correct the crowd. “CCRed, CCRed” he tried to chant, but the crowd kept chanting CCR anyway, oblivious to the difference.

When I interviewed Clifford in July, I was given two very important directions from the band’s publicist:

1) For legal reasons, I couldn’t refer to the band as CCR;

2) The band is not a cover or tribute band, as two of CCR’s original members founded Creedence Clearwater Revisited.

One of the questions that I asked of Clifford during that interview was “Why return to this music?” and he responded, “Well, because we had this terrific legacy of music and no one was performing it, including John Fogerty. Nobody was doing it and we were hearing it daily that it would be great to hear the music live again.”

But he didn’t address why as an artist he would want to return to music he’d started playing decades ago, just to play it over and over again, without creating anything new. And sitting in the audience at CannaFest, watching band members old and new play all the old songs note for note, the same question came to mind — especially after having caught the end of Loverboy’s set.

Loverboy (for those who like me circa before-Saturday weren’t sure who they are) were basically the ’80s. They even have a compilation album called We Are the ’80s, and even if you don’t recognize the band name you would very likely recognize some of their songs — “Turn Me Loose,” “Lovin’ Every Minute of It.” “The Kid is Hot Tonite” and “Working for the Weekend,” just to name a few.

But while Loverboy’s heyday may have been three decades ago, that didn’t keep the band from rockin’ it on Saturday night. Yes, Loverboy played all their fan favourites from the ’80s, but they also threw in a riff of the old Spider-man theme song at the tail end of one tune and had a ten minute drum solo, with Matt Frenette holding down the stage until his bandmates began wandering back on to throw in their own (relatively) brief solos.

They were willing to improvise and first and foremost they were there to put on a show. At 62 years old, frontman Mike Reno was still all about keeping the fans pumped up and chanting for more.

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Kurt Griffey, Doug “Cosmo” Clifford and Dan McGuinness of Creedence Clearwater Revisited on stage at CannaFest. (Chelsea Novak/Castlegar News)
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Loverboy got the CannaFest crowd pumped up. (Chelsea Novak/Castlegar News)