Creedence Clearwater Revival were about to enter a storm. Seventy-two hours after touching down in London in April 1970, ahead of their first European tour, their press conference was overshadowed by shock news of The Beatles’ split. Reporters, TV crews and distressed fans were gathering in numbers outside Beatles label Apple’s offices on Savile Row; newspapers scurried to prepare competing headlines.
The next day’s NME carried an oddly prophetic interview with CCR leader John Fogerty, conducted en route to customs inspection at Heathrow airport. He explained that his band were now experiencing what The Beatles had gone through a thousand-fold, their records selling in huge quantities worldwide. “Of course,” he added, “we can never ever hope to emulate the impact made by The Beatles. Nobody can.”
His modesty was understandable. But it transpired that Fogerty was somewhat underplaying the CCR effect. In a little over a year, they had scored half a dozen Top 10 singles and three platinum-selling albums in their native US – arun that was about to eclipse the Fabs in terms of sales. CCR were fast becoming the biggest band on the planet.
On the night of April 14, 1970, they set out to prove it. Four days on from the Beatles news, CCR played the first of two sell-out shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall. It was an unmitigated triumph, the band powering through a set with explosive force, twisting the basic tenets of rock’n’roll into their own distinct brand of Californian voodoo.
“Right around that time we really started to come into our own,” Fogerty reflects today. “You start to hear that confidence and swagger in the way we perform. That performance was pretty doggone good, pretty solid and strong and full of energy. I was a kid from El Cerrito and, as of two years before that, had never been anywhere. Suddenly I’m touring the States for a year and then experiencing all the musical touchstones of Europe.”
“It was an honour to be there, knowing that we get to play in The Beatles’ house, the Royal Albert Hall,” says voluble CCR drummer Doug Clifford. “I’m an athlete, and always have been, so I’m competitive about when I play
