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Gordon Lightfoot: Live at Massey Hall, Toronto, May 25, 2011Posted by ZoomerStaff on May 30, 2011 at 3:30pm
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. In a recent interview, The Who's guitarist Pete Townshend touched upon the struggles an aging rock n' roller faces with each new live performance they undertake: "There’s a sense of being in front of a bunch of fans who really want to see you fight on stage, or scowl at each other, or die. They want to be there when you die.”

And can you blame them? When the sex, drugs & rock n' roll ethos dominated 1960s and 1970s youth culture, we looked up to (and perhaps even envied) rock n' rollers as our beacons of excess. But the long road isn't kind, and more often than not, the on-stage appearance of an aging rocker is a necessary complication we now encounter when we see them live. This is what excess looks like — the numerous rehab stints, the nagging hearing and vocal problems, and perhaps worst of all (because the audience is complacently involved with this), the acceptance that the rock n' roller you saw likely peaked during that hazy heyday.

Case in point: Gordon Lightfoot. Last weekend, the Canadian music statesman — the man whom Dylan counts as one of his favourite songwriters — played a four night stand at Toronto's Massey Hall, which was apparently touted as his 150th appearance at the venue since 1974.

Ever since a 2002 stroke as well as a death hoax last year, more eyes have been on Lightfoot's health than on his musical output. (Which, ever since releasing 2004's Harmony, has just been "Best Of" compilations.) Appearing first on stage looking lean in a royal blue velvet bolero, the singer songwriter was at ease with his venerable backing band. (This, despite a recent replacement of long-time guitarist Terry Clements — who passed in February — with the lively Carter Lancaster.)

While he was adept at balancing the crowd's favourites — like classics "If You Could Read My Mind" or "Sundown" — with the lesser-known material, the audience had to wait for that thin reed voice to warm up, and accept that most of the show would move at a slow and steady toe tapping pace.

But from the looks of it, none of this matter to the audience. They looked like the crowd that likely caught him back at the Riverboat, that 1960s Toronto coffee house where Lightfoot staked his Canadian folk hero status. It was practically a full house at Massey Hall, with polite applause and even a standing ovation. Yet, you felt as if the occasion of the performance (150th!) weighed more to the audience, a sentimentality for seeing a survivor breeze through a defining catalogue, and nothing more to it. Just another show on the road for Lightfoot.

Yet at this point in his career, a Gordon Lightfoot Massey Hall performance has reached Bucket List status — a thing you need to check off you that did it before you die. So it doesn't necessarily matter if the show defied or affirmed expectations, as you're no longer accepting (or excepting) any reinvention. You've only came to see this man — whose legacy is likely Canadian citizenship test material — play in the flesh.