http://www.thespec.com/news-story/45...-up-the-stage/
Lightfoot lights up the stage
Gordon Lightfoot
Kaz Novak,The Hamilton Spectator
Music legend Gordon Lightfoot, beloved by fans around the world, on Wednesday night felt the love only Hamilton can give. He performed his enduring brand of music before an adoring crowd at Hamilton Place.
By Amy Kenny
Christmas came in spring for Andrew Clarke, who received Gordon Lightfoot tickets from his wife Sarah Grill back in December.
The couple travelled to the city from outside Paris to see the singer play Hamilton Place Wednesday night.
Clarke, 44, is a long-time fan who said he was hooked from his first Lightfoot album.
"It's classic Canadian music," he said, noting the 75-year old musician's tunes always set the tone - whether for summer vacation, building a cottage (Lightfoot was the soundtrack to the construction of Grill's family cabin) or heading out on a road trip.
Those classic Canadian tunes got a big reception from the diverse crowd at Hamilton Place ("You look around and there is someone from every walk of life," Grill said, people-watching in the lobby before the show started).
"Nice to be back in Hamilton," Lightfoot told the audience after he and his four backing bandmates opened the show with Sweet Guinevere. "We all live in Toronto. We don't smoke crack cocaine."
He later joked about the number of bad songs he wrote before he started recording at Hamilton's Grant Avenue Studio.
Over the course of two sets of roughly 50 minutes each (a 20-minute intermission allowed the audience to grab a drink and Lightfoot to swap a cropped blue velvet jacket for its crimson counterpart), Lightfoot focused on the 70s era of his back catalogue.
Songs such as The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Sundown and Carefree Highway were highlights. He also played All the Lovely Ladies, Now and Then, Fine as Fine Can Be and If You Could Read My Mind, alternating them with 90s works including Restless, I'd Rather Press On, Wild Strawberries and A Painter Passing Through.
Between Baby Step Back, Drifters, Beautiful, Don Quixote, Cotton Jenny and Minstrel of the Dawn, the audience laughed, shouted out requests and generally enjoyed themselves, coaxing Lightfoot back to the stage for a single-song encore at 10 p.m.
"I'll surprise the heck out of you with this one," Lightfoot said before playing Rainy Day People from 1975's Cold on the Shoulder
With 15 Junos, five Grammy nominations and more than 50 years of touring under his belt, Lightfoot's voice isn't quite what it once was, but he's still legendary. Most people knew not to expect the rich warm baritone of decades past, but Hamilton Place was still packed with cheering fans.
Even Clarke, who had already seen Lightfoot a handful of times before Wednesday night, said he still hoped he might be able to bring his and Grill's 11-year old son out to his own first Lightfoot show someday soon.
akenny@thespec.com
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