Creedence Clearwater Revival's spellbinding Royal Albert Hall concert finally sees the light of day: album review

What a long and strange journey the long lost album and concert film Creedence Clearwater Revival Royal Albert Hall has taken in the half century since it happened.

The show and road footage was recorded by the BBC during the first European tour of the group in April 1970, but never aired. Recording was presumably suspended in the notorious legal battles between the band and its original label, Fantasy Records, although footage of the concert has appeared many times over the decades (even in a TV commercial for an album by the bands). Creedence's greatest low-budget hits of the 80s). Even more confusingly, Fantasy released a very similar live album titled "The Royal Albert Hall Concert" before realizing that the tapes had been mistakenly labeled and that the album had actually been recorded ten weeks earlier and at 5 000 miles away at the band's triumphant comeback concert at Oakland Coliseum (the album was soon retitled "The Concert").

But after five decades of resting on the shelves, the concert and film are rolled out in elaborate fashion, with a variety of deluxe editions centered around a 12-song album and a full-length video that includes both a brief documentary – narrated, of course, by Jeff Bridges, whose band worship in “The Big Lebowski” has makes him the patron saint of Creedence – and, best of all, an electrifying movie of the full concert (it's available on Netflix). The Royal Albert Hall show captures the band at the absolute peak of their powers, the impossibly brief superstar culmination that saw them score an incredible seven Top 5 singles and five Top 10 albums (including two No. 1s) in one little more than two years, then fading as quickly as they had grown.

In fact, the movie of the concert is the best document yet of what an incredible group Creedence was. Yes, their sound was based entirely on the songs, vocals and lead guitar of frontman John Fogerty, whose dictatorial control of the band propelled them to overnight stardom - ironically, more than a decade after they began playing together in college - and ultimately tore them apart. But often overlooked was the band's loose but deceptively disciplined groove, honed over their many years playing bars, balls and parties before breaking through in 1968 with a swampy cover of Dale Hawkins' "Suzie Q." Like their idols Booker T & the MGs, the band took the definition of "rhythm section" to heart, locking themselves into a primitive groove on the slower numbers and searing energy on the rockers. Fogerty's older brother Tom - the band's first frontman - embraced his role as rhythm guitarist with spartan literalness, his playing sometimes resembling as much a percussion instrument as a melodic instrument: he played chords almost exclusively, sitting to a (often a seventh or a jazz chord) for minutes at a time with jerky hits or flowing strumming, providing the basis for the band's nimble groove – even bassist Stu Cook, with his nimble melodic strokes, and rock-solid drummer Doug "Cosmo" Clifford played with more flash than him.

What makes this concert movie so special is that you get to see the band in full vol: the setlist and playing aren't radically different from the other two live albums recorded during this period, but their almost telepathic communication is on full display and fascinating to almost anyone who enjoys watching live music. Yes, this is John Fogerty's band, but the band members are just as intently watching each other with their eyes closed and locked. While the footage from the band's fiery Woodstock shoot - also released 50 years after the event - is almost as exciting, it's darker lit (and obviously there's a very different vibe between being headlined at august place like the Royal Albert Hall and follow a shambolic set of the Grateful Dead at 2:30 am during a legendary but chaotic festival).

Calling this concert a pinnacle is no understatement: according to recent Creedence history "A song for everyone, "The show was the beginning of the end. As the crowd roared for an encore that John Fogerty bemusedly refused to play (what Bridges characterizes in the film as a "ten-minute ovation"), Longstanding resentments finally bubbled to the surface. Tom Fogerty left less than a year later, and Creedence parted ways a year later.

But tonight, roaring thr...