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Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall

1970 concert celebrated in audio and video

By Paul Sinclair

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Legendary 1970 live performance unearthed, restored and newly mixed. Limited edition box set includes new documentary and Dolby Atmos Mix.

Creedence Clearwater Revival’s legendary performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 1970 is finally officially released as CCR at the Royal Albert Hall in September. Featuring the fabled performance in its entirety, the recording includes such enduring hits as ‘Fortunate Son’, ‘Proud Mary’ and ‘Bad Moon Rising’.

The audio for this release has been restored and mixed by Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell. The album will be released alongside the documentary concert film Travelin’ Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall, narrated by Jeff Bridges and directed by Bob Smeaton (he directed The Beatles Anthology, you may remember). The film takes viewers from the band’s earliest years together in El Cerrito, CA through their meteoric rise to fame. Featuring a wealth of unseen footage, Travelin’ Band culminates with the band’s show at the Royal Albert Hall—marking the only concert footage of the original CCR lineup to be released in its entirety.

The limited edition box set features all manner of exclusive content (click image to pre-order)

The Royal Albert Hall shows were on 14 & 15 April 1970 – just days after the Beatles announced their breakup – and were part of the four-piece’s first European tour – an eight-show run that included stops in Holland, Germany, France, and Denmark. The group were at the height of their powers, having enjoyed five top 10 singles in America in the previous year along with a trio of top 10 albums (Bayou Country, Green River, Willy and the Poor Boys). They’d played to over a million people across the US, including at the Woodstock Festival and a triumphant hometown show at Oakland Coliseum early in 1970.

Confusingly, a decade later in 1980, Fantasy Records released a live album by the band, titled The Royal Albert Hall Concert. However it was quickly discovered that the audio was, in fact, from the aforementioned Oakland Coliseum show. The label did rush to sticker the album to correct the error – and properly renamed the January 1970 performance as The Concert for later production runs – but it was a messy episode. Actual footage and audio from the Royal Albert Hall show has never been issued, until now.

Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall will be released on CD and vinyl (and even a limited cassette) in September, however SDE readers should be aware that there is a limited edition box set version which has quite a lot going for it. It includes the 12-track live album, in full, across two vinyl records, pressed at 45RPM (the standard single vinyl is 33RPM).It also includes a bonus CD featuring music from the film, including formative recordings from the band’s earliest incarnations and probably most interestingly it is the only format that includes a the Travelin’ Band documentary and a Dolby Atmos Mix of the live album (along with a hi-res stereo version). These reside on a blu-ray disc.

Limited to 5,000 copies worldwide, each individually numbered set is housed in a 12” x 12” box, with embossed gold foil detail, and includes a reproduction of the original 1970 tour program, a 17” x 24” poster, and a 16-page booklet, featuring an excerpt from Bridges’ voice-over script, which offers background on the band’s path to the London show.

The box set is exclusive to Craft Recordings’ websites in the UK and in the USA

Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall is released on CD, vinyl and cassette on 16 September 2022, via Craft Recordings. However the box set doesn’t ship until 18 November. The documentary film will ‘rollout’ internationally on 16 September although there’s no details at present as to how that will happen.

Tracklisting

At The Royal Albert Hall Creedence Clearwater Revival /

    • 33RPM vinyl LP / CD / Cassette
      1. Born on the Bayou
      2. Green River
      3. Tombstone Shadow
      4. Travelin’ Band
      5. Fortunate Son
      6. Commotion
      7. Midnight Special
      8. Bad Moon Rising
      9. Proud Mary
      10. The Night Time Is the Right Time
      11. Good Golly Miss Molly
      12. Keep on Chooglin’
    • Bonus CD in the box
      1. Tommy Fogerty and the Blue Velvets – Come On Baby
      2. The Golliwogs – Brown-Eyed Girl
      3. The Golliwogs – Porterville
      4. Susie Q.
      5. I Put A Spell On You
      6. Proud Mary
      7. Born On The Bayou
      8. Bad Moon Rising
      9. Green River
      10. The Night Time Is The Right Time
      11. Down On The Corner
      12. Who’ll Stop The Rain
    • 45 RPM 2LP in the box
      LP 1
      Side A
      1. Born on the Bayou
      2. Green River
      3. Tombstone Shadow
      Side B
      1. Travelin’ Band
      2. Fortunate Son
      3. Commotion
      4. Midnight Special
      LP 2
      Side C
      1. Bad Moon Rising
      2. Proud Mary
      3. Night Time Is The Right Time
      Side D
      1. Good Golly Miss Molly
      2. Keep on Chooglin’

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