The Record
Pubdate:October 17, 2006
Warming up with age; Gordon Lightfoot concert at the Centre was like a visit from a favourite uncle who suddenly has more time for you
Byline/Source: ROBERT REID RECORD STAFF
Photo Caption: Photo: MATHEW McCARTHY, RECORD STAFF / Gordon Lightfoot warmed to the crowd at the Centre in the Square on Sunday. Watch the video at
www.therecord.com. Photo
At some level, you have to talk about Gordon Lightfoot
in symbolic terms.
The CD booklet for Harmony -- his 20th album of
original songs released after his brush with death in 2002
-- includes a photo of the singer-songwriter changing guitar strings.
New strings on a venerable guitar celebrated for it masterful
craftsmanship -- it's an image that applies to an artist
who wears the term legendary with the comfort of a
pair of jeans.
Lightfoot returned to familiar turf when he made his ninth
visit to Centre in the Square since 1980, his first
in seven years. No Canadian recording artist has insinuated himself
deeper into the lives of fans than the 67-year-old Orillia
native.
It was evident from Sunday night's capacity crowd that many
chart the contours of their lives by the compass of
Lightfoot songs and albums.
The woman who sat beside me came with her 92-year-old
mother. They attended the concert together as an act of
remembrance of a son and a brother, who died four
years ago.
"He played Gordon Lightfoot songs on his guitar," the lady
offered, "which my mom still has it in her apartment.'
They held hands when Lightfoot performed If You Could Read
My Mind. And stood at concert's end.
A Lightfoot concert is different from what it was before
the ravages of living hard began extracting revenge.
In his prime he would plow through a dozen songs
without so much as a nod to the audience, impervious
to the adulation, sometimes to the point of appearing disdainful
of fans. Not anymore.
Now he nods in appreciation and says thank you after
every song, even if he still isn't big on between-song
chat.
However, he did explain how Elvis improved the lyricism of
Early Mornin' Rain by changing "cold and drunk as I
can be" to "cold and drunk as I might be."
A Lightfoot concert these days resembles the visit of a
favourite uncle who everybody in the family admires, even loves,
because he's wrestled with life on his own terms and
accepted the consequences with grace and modesty.
As usual when he performs in Kitchener, family and many
close friends were in attendance.
The passage of time was most evident in his voice,
once one of the hallmarks of his performance.
His once-resonant baritone is long past reedy, raspy or wispy.
It's a thin shadow of a voice that was.
Initially, it was shocking to hear his diminished instrument when
he slipped into the opening songs, including Cotton Jenny and
14 Karat Gold, of the first of two 50-minute sets.
He didn't perform many of his best-loved songs, one suspects
because of vocal demands he can no longer satisfy. Consequently,
for much of the concert, the audience response was more
polite than enthusiastic.
With the exception of A Painter Passing Through, Restless, In
My Fashion and Waiting for You, Lightfoot's songs from the
1980s and 90s don't strike the deep chords of his
songs from the late '60s and '70s.
At one point, he even asked: "I'm doing all right,
am I?"
He needn't have worried.
His most familiar songs were greeted with robust applause and
he received a sustained standing ovation, which he acknowledged with
an encore of Old Dan's Records. He returned for a
bow with the audience still standing.
Once his vocal chords warmed up and the crowd's ears
adjusted to the fragility, what was initially a weakness acquired
strength -- equal parts perseverance and courage. The raw, rugged
grandeur of Johnny Cash's American Recordings came to mind.
An early favourite, Ribbon of Darkness, acquired bittersweet poignancy when
delivered by an artist who spent six weeks in a
coma four years ago.
Sit Down Young Stranger, a coming-of-age chronicle written during the
Vietnam War, was transformed into a song of recollection and
reflection from the perspective of maturity.
His most tender songs, such as Rainy Day People and
If You Could Read My Mind, were imbued with a
vulnerability that cast an autumnal glow, which was elegiac.
Heroically, he negotiated The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, his
epic saga of a Lake Superior shipping disaster, during the
first set.
And he bravely offered Canadian Railroad Trilogy, a song woven
so tightly into the Canadian fabric as to be mythic,
in the second set.
There were moments when it seemed his voice wouldn't hold
up. But he made it to the last lines: "When
the green dark forest was too silent to be real/And
many are the dead men . . . (extended pause)
. . . too silent to be real."
Like his voice, Lightfoot's guitar work on his six-string Martin
and 12-string Gibson proved worse for wear. This was understandable,
since he suffered a mini-stroke a few weeks ago.
As always, he was accompanied by his longtime band of
Terry Clements on lead acoustic guitar, Rick Haynes on bass,
Berry Keane on drums and Michael Heffernan on keyboards.
There was definite sense of denouement about the concert.
Lightfoot has been so deeply ingrained in the Canadian psyche
for so long, we think he's immortal, like his songs.
But, as he confesses in In My Fashion, "I have
seen the reaper."
Irrespective of what he has seen, Gordon Lightfoot's great, endearing,
beautiful legacy will not pass.
rreid@therecord.com
2006 Kitchener review
