[spocksbrain]

Ha! Watch the Martin Scorcese film "No Direction Home" for the crowd reaction to Dylan and the Band. They said things like "Crap, he's just crap!" and "He's got that incredibly CHEEZY rock band backing him up" and "That bastard!". They felt that Dylan had lost his pizzaz in 1965! Fans can be fickle when they don't quite understand something.

Gordon's current show is not just about nostalgia. He, for the first time, is having to "reinvent" some of his songs to fit his vocal changes. He is repainting some of his old pictures, just as Dylan and so many other artists do for whatever reason. To me, this makes each performance interesting. Lightfoot is not a nostalgia act. When he sings, he is never just going through the motions. He is putting his emotions to work to express feelings. That's why he gets standing ovations after IYCRMM every night, not just because Joe Blow remembers putting the 45 on the turntable in 1970. The songs really mean something.

Everyone has a right to their opinion, and there is a valid argument that Gordon has lost it. His voice is tattered and torn, not the husky, velvet instrument that Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings wrote about in 1969. But, this is a different person we see now. The voice fits the man. THAT IS ART.