Gordon Lightfoot in Concert

Last night in Baton Rouge. This is not a review of the concert but perhaps of life.

I love his music. Always have since @1973 when I first heard the voice. And then, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". Has there ever been another song title that flows so effortlessly? It's almost a song in and of itself. So many songs....

He's 73 yrs old and on tour again after a 5 week hiatus over the holidays and that ain't easy at any age. I don't know why he still does it. I don't really care 'why'. It's amazing that he does at all.

He is quite fragile-looking. Very thin and slightly stooped. He played:

Spanish Moss

Sundown

If You Could Read My Mind

Shadows

Don Quixote

Ribbon of Darkness

Home From the Forest

Beautiful

Canadian Railroad Trilogy

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Did She Mention My Name

Rainy Day People

Fine As Fine Can Be

A Painter Passing Through

Baby Step Back

Let It Ride

Sweet Guinevere

Never Too Close

The Watchman's Gone

Cotton Jenny

Sea of Tranquilty

In My Fashion

* not sung in that order

That's 22 songs that I can remember him singing and I know there was one more I can't recall the name of. The backdrops looked like huge sails with colored patterns projects on and I kept thinking what splendid fabric that would make.

The band was perfect and missing two former members who have died over the years. Lightfoot doesn't change his band for anything less.* see comments

His voice of his youth is firmly in the past now and there is no returning, except from the vinyls and digitized cds. Again, I don't care. He sings the songs and knows the words and needs no reminders of what they were back then or changes them up to be current. I suppose because the words are timeless to begin with and the melodies are endless.

I think I drove the girls mad playing the cassettes in the car endlessly. I hope they like him now but who can say. All I know is there aren't many singer-songwriters like him around today. You could listen to the music and understand the lyrics and they usually told a story but sometimes only left you interpreting the meaning for your own purpose.

I loved it. And the audience for the most part loved it. He made several punny jokes, such as

"I gave up drinking anything stronger than pop. Of course, Pop will drink anything!"

This was completely in keeping with a man of his generation. He wasn't trying to be edgy or tragically hip. No one groaned.

Several people left for whatever reason. Maybe they were disappointed in the thinness of his reedy voice. Maybe it reminded them too much of mortality and the relentless unflinching passage of time. All I know is 96% of the audience was over 60 and perhaps those who stayed saw what I did.