The Long Road Home - In Concert (Audio Version) [Live]

Album Review

The Long Road Home: In Concert is a double-CD companion piece to the live DVD of the same name released in the summer of 2006. Appearing a couple months after the DVD, the CD has the same tracks in the same sequencing as the DVD, capturing the September 15, 2005, concert at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles in its entirety. In either incarnation, this is one terrifically entertaining performance, a spirited stroll through Fogerty's back catalog inspired by his excellent 2005 compilation, The Long Road Home, which was the first collection to contain music from both his years as Creedence Clearwater Revival's leader and as a solo act. Although the original recordings, particularly the CCR sides, remain definitive, the concert in a way makes a stronger argument than the comp for the common threads within Fogerty's body of work, since the newer tunes sit side by side with the classics, all performed by his crackerjack band featuring guitarists Bob Britt and Billy Burnette. Here, recent songs like "Hot Rod Heart," "Rambunctious Boy," and "Déjà Vu (All Over Again)" fit comfortably alongside "Green River," "Lodi," "Centerfield," "Fortunate Son," and "Proud Mary," among other Fogerty standards, because there is no difference in the sound of the recordings; it's just this terrific band playing, and the crisp and muscular performances illustrate that there's not a great difference between the rockabilly of "Blue Moon Nights" and "Looking Out My Back Door." That small but important revelation is what makes The Long Road Home: In Concert, in either its video or audio incarnation, a cut above the average live album.