Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall – unboxed!

A year later – september 1971 – I saw CCR, a trio by then, at the Sportpaleis in Antwerpen, which is now the biggest concert hall in Belgium. It was probably the first music performance there, as it had been a velodrome (cycling competitions) for decades. It was like a pilgrimage, a youth club had organised a bus to that concert. In my home-town, you had two types of youth then: a regular crowd, which went to ‘t-dansants’, commercial dance-parties, AND – very important then – bought the 45 rpm’s, and us, the hippies, who had our own small music club mainly for listening but you were free to dance (wildly most of the time), wé bought the albums. So this was a nice occasion to meet each other half-way. And we did: brotherly love, and some more also … First on – as a surprise -were Shampoo, a newly formed jazz-rock band, with members of the biggest indigenous group then, The Pebbles, which, a few years earlier, in 1968 had received a telegram from George Harrison congratulating them for their – highest charting – hit single, ‘Seven Horses in the Sky’ and showing some interest for recording them for Apple. But nothing came from that … the Biggest Belgian Hope went up in smoke ! They played nice instrumental music for the hippies mainly. Next came Tony Joe White … and with none other than Booker T. and The MG’s as his backing band … They were incredible funky-swampy good, in fact, I liked them better than CCR. They played for both denominations, as they had had a few hit singles ànd issued popular albums to. Then the headliners, which rapidly got everyone on their feet, hit after hit, with – alas – only one jam, Keep On Chooglin’ … As rock concerts were still quite rare, and difficult to get to and certainly to get home the same night, it was a seminal, epiphanic eye- and ear opening experience, which would very soon be followed by much more of the same. The other nice thing about it that both lifestyle members learned to appreciate each other, and from then on, for a few years, regular visits were made to each other dens, probably the main reason were the ladies who took care that any division went up in smoke or was drowned in Belgian beer … There is an obscure TJ White live-cd that has some tracks recorded in Antwerp, as has the CCR ‘Live In Europe’-double album, unfortunately, in both cases, it is not clear which tracks these are.

Thanks Paul, mine arrived yesterday but I haven’t broken the seal yet so it was useful to see your video. I’ve heard some negative comments about the concert audio, hence the fact that I haven’t yet taken off the shrink. I think I’ll probably keep it however, so it was good to see the contents. I really enjoyed the documentary when I watched it on Netflix, really good.

It looks like CCR fans doesn’t follow SDE. One comment before mine!

Thanks for the unboxing video Paul. I really wanted this but the postage to Australia nearly doubled the price. Ended up purchasing a clear vinyl and the CD. The documentary on Netflix (and of course the Concert) is excellent and well worth seeing. Loved the visuals and interviews of the various band members whilst sight seeing. First time overseas and wanted to see the sites:)
They seemed really down to earth, friendly guys.
Not much banter between the band and audience (about 6 words lol!) but the concert is superb and very well restored.

Hi nice video as always – the number is on outer box back tucked away in right corner