Gordon Lightfoot Forums - longest concert

A few personal observations:

When I first started attending Gord concerts in the 1970s most of them were in a single set which ran between 1hr 15 min to 1hr 30 min. Often that was when he had another band touring with him as the "warm-up" act. Two warm-up acts that I've seen with Gord in the 1970s were Lionna Boyd (a wonderful classical guitarist) and The Good Brothers (a Canadian Bluegrass band). The warm-up act would play about 30 minutes (give or take), then there would be about a 15 minute intermission followed by The Man.

In 1980 was the first time I've seen Gord touring without a warmup act. Those concerts would usually run about 2 hours, split into 2 sets. Even in his younger days, I've admired Gord's stamina to stand there and sing those wonderful tunes. (by the way, some of Gord's age peers have begun to bring in memory crutches on stage like music stands with the lyrics -- I've never seen Gord do that, even today).

In some settings in recent years I've seen, or heard from others, of Gord performinng a single set about 90 minutes. Usually that would be in a setting like at Trump Plaza in Atlantic City.

I used to keep track of the time of Gord's concerts because it was such an enjoyable experience that the moment Gord walked off the stage with the guys seemed to come much too soon. But when I checked my watch I was surprised at how much time he sang.

This topic begs another question: what factors go into how long the show ends up being? Is it up to the performer? Or is a specific length of showtime booked? On occasion I've heard Gord mention on stage "the amount time we have left" when discussing whether he would be able to fit certain requests in. Is this a contracted amount of time?

In any case, we can all be thankful that we still have a wonderful, committed, physically fit performer who cares deeply about the quality of product he delivers to his fans. We certainly are very fortunate.