http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Enter...661/story.html
The legend lives on.
Not just from the Chippewa on down to the big lake they call Gitchee Gumee, but in Alberta as well. A sold-out audience of more than 2,500 turned out for a man as bred-in-the-bone Canadian as you can get -- Gordon Lightfoot.
Striding out in grey pants and a crushed velvet red jacket, the 70-year-old Ontarian took his four-piece band -- including longtime cohorts Rick Haynes on bass and guitarist Terry Clements -- through two sets of material covering 50 years' worth of recording.
Considering the depth of his catalogue, there was an awful lot to cover -- from the dark hoodoo of Sundown to the contemporary folk-song-as-news epic that is The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, from the smash '70s hit If You Could Read My Mind to Carefree Highway.
Most of it was exactly as you might remember -- unlike his friend Bob Dylan, Lightfoot seems content with replicating the sound of his classic records -- the only difference possibly being the teeth-gritting bontempi organ sounds of his keyboard player.
But let it pass -- what really counted was Lightfoot's melancholy voice wound around sparse bass and drums, not as mellow as in his youth, but still affecting on numbers like If Children Had Wings. Much of the singer-songwriter's appeal lies in his ability to map the terrain between regret and desire without falling into nostalgic middle-of-the-road cliches -- although much of Tuesday night's show could be thought of as middle of the road.
After so many albums, you couldn't blame him for trying to sneak in a few newer songs, but Lightfoot knows exactly what his audience wants -- the classics, Early Morning Rain, If You Could Read My Mind, Rainy Day People, the Canadian Railroad Trilogy -- interspersed with lesser-known numbers such as Triangle.
The audience was keen to show him the love, singing out lines from their favourite songs and declaring undying fealty -- even exploding into appreciative applause for Alberta Bound.
It was apparent that most of the crowd have been following him for decades, but there was a contingent of younger fans scattered throughout, including a few notable local alt rockers.
There were no revelations, of course -- it's long past that time for Lightfoot -- but he still held his own, and even just being in his presence was a pleasure.