[2Much2Lose]

Frank -

I have had the pleasure to see 6 concerts (plus the tape from Char). They are as follows:

04/13/74 McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ
06/30/75 Garden State Art Center, Holmdel, NJ
07/01/76 Garden State Art Center, Holmdel, NJ
07/07/77 Garden State Art Center, Holmdel, NJ
03/02/00 John Harms Center, Englewood, NJ
08/09/00 Town Hall, New York, NY

The McCarter Theatre concert was excellent. College crowd, small venue. I was a relatively new Gord fan at that time, with just 3 albums (IYCRMM, Sundown, DonQ). Many of the songs played at that concert were new to me and I do not remember what they were. I would love to have a set list from that concert. I do remember the 3 title tracks, plus High&Dry, Carefree Highway, CRT, EMR and For Lovin'Me (possibly as a medley). I also think he did Christian Island, Seven IslandSuite and Watchman and a lot of other material from Sundown, but I'm not sure of the exact cuts. I bought SSL and Bestof shortly after that concert.

The 3 G.S.A.C. concerts are also non-distinct in my memory, except that it was a relatively lousy venue and that Gord appeared rather indifferent to the audience in the third concert, which disappointed me. I had a front row seat in the second concert, which was great, and more than compensated for the poor venue. I recall him concentrating on his new material in the first half of each concert, so the 1975 concert had a lot of material from COTS, including the title track, RainyDayPeople, All the Lovely Ladies; and the 1976 concert had material from SummertimeDream, including the title track, Wreck, Never Too Close, House You Live In, Race among the Ruins and (pretty sure) Cherokee Bend. It is possible that I am mixing up 1976 and 1977 in my mind to some degree. I remember the Auctioneer from at least two of the concerts, because I remember looking for it when Endless Wire was released and being delighted to see it finally on DSR. I recall that he started at least two of the concerts with If It Should Please You, which is a great opener. I don't recall which songs were the encores.

Twenty-three years later, March 2, 2000, however, is the best for me. I had been passively looking for a local Gord concert ever since I learned to use the 'Net, but I found this one by a chance reading in a local newspaper. I had not yet purchased Shadows, Salute or Songbook, although since the release of GG2 (with its 2 cuts from Shadows) I had been looking for Shadows in several old record stores (I obtained Songbook immediately after the concert and got Shadows and Salute from eBay a few weeks after the concert).

The set list from the Englewood concert was as follows:

14 Karat Gold
I'll Prove My Love
In My Fashion
Beautiful
The House You Live In
Sundown
Carefree Highway
Sea of Tranquility
Never Too Close
Restless
Blackberry Wine
For Loving Me/Did She Mention My Name
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
(intermission)
Waiting For You
Fading Away
Rainy Day People
Shadows
A Painter Passing Through
If You Could Read My Mind
Don Quixote
Early Morning Rain
Song for a Winter's Night
Baby Step Back
Canadian Railroad Trilogy

Encore: Old Dan's Records

I had never heard Blackbery Wine before, and did not own a copy of 14K Gold or In My Fashion, being familiar with those songs only from a friend's copy of Shadows. Obviously, all the songs written since 1977 were new to me as concert performances. I was particularly happy to hear Restless and the other 2 selections from Waiting for You, as well as Painter. I was surprised that he did not do any other selections from Painter, which makes me think that he is not too fond of that album (or maybe I'm just projecting my own view). I also was delighted to hear House You Live In plus Never Too Close, because I did not expect to hear three selections from SummertimeDream (Wreck was the 3rd).

"But anyway," to hear Gord again after 23 years was absolute delight, and it makes this my favorite concert. If he had performed none of my favorites but "Beautiful" I would have been content, but there was so much more. Gord was much more involved with the audience than he had been in the (disappointing) 1977 concert. Hearing so much "new" material was great, and 14K Gold immediately became one of my favorites, which I played incessantly after buying Songbook. The only question mark of the concert was that it felt weird (but strangely appropriate) to be at a concert with so many middle aged people.

I have promised to give a review of the August 9 Town Hall concert, so I will save that for another post. It was a good concert but inferior musically to the Englewood concert, and the New York crowd was highly annoying (walking around, late to their seats, shouting out requests, extensive applause in the middle of CRT, etc.).

More later.

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"And the laughter came too easy for life to pass me by." - SDYS