John Fogerty gives MGM Grand crowd a lesson in classic rock

Hey, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, you guys look like slouches compared to John Fogerty and his band.

Hard to believe, but true. It's just that - sorry, Bruce - Fogerty's concert Friday at MGM Grand at Foxwoods was, simply put, thrilling. It invigorated the whole notion of classic rock. This A-team collection of musicians attacked everything aggressively and ecstatically.

And Fogerty? He was a renewed revelation.

Fogerty - who's 64, not that you'd guess it - showed he could still yowl with the best of 'em, wielding that distinctively raw, muscular voice. He approached his guitar solos with childlike glee and expert craft. His signature swamp-rock sound rumbled with intensity.

Fogerty has re-embraced his Creedence Clearwater Revival songs after years of enmity over the band's split and royalties disputes. Any anger seems to have dissipated, as he reacted to those hits with as much zest as audience members did.

The concert also delved heavily into his new CD of covers, "The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again." Fogerty infused the covers with a real roots feel, and he became uncharacteristically soft and wistful on his effective reworkings of Rick Nelson's "Garden Party" and John Denver's "Back Home Again."

While the "Blue Ridge" numbers were enjoyable and, stylistically, sat comfortably with his Creedence and solo catalog, it would have been compelling if more Fogerty classics had been sprinkled among the covers that were lumped in the middle of the set.

Ah, but bookending the concert were Fogerty's greatest hits, and truly great they were, from "Born on the Bayou" to "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" The crowd response to "Fortunate Son," one of the best rock songs ever written, was full-out fervor.

Key, too, to the night's success was the killer band, including drummer Kenny Aronoff and guitarist Billy Burnette, who elevated everything they played. Even better, an atmosphere of musical playfulness permeated the whole concert. The best moment: a segment of dueling improv between Fogerty on guitar and Jason Mowery on fiddle. It was sheer musical euphoria.