Gord's Hordes
As an alternative to Lightheads, lol, from the Kalamazoo Gazette:
Gordon Lightfoot weak, but still a legend, in Saturday's Miller Auditorium performance
by Mark Wedel | Special to Kalamazoo Gazette
Monday September 29, 2008, 9:57 AM
KALAMAZOO -- Miller Auditorium was full of Gord's Hordes, as well as regular Gordon Lightfoot fans, Saturday night.
The Canadian troubadour gave two sets with all the hits plus rarely heard chestnuts from his long career.
Six years ago, Lightfoot, who will be 70 in November, had a dire emergency with an abdominal aneurysm, spent six weeks in a coma and 28 months recovering.
At Miller, Lightfoot was in a good mood and acted in good health, but he was quite thin, and his voice is far from the smooth baritone it once was.
Singers whose recordings from 30 years ago are heard more than their current vocals face a hazard of not being able to compete with their past. Saturday, Lightfoot's voice was thin, tremulous, and strained too much when going for the highs (a handful of patrons were apparently disappointed, and so left at intermission, according to one observer).
But although his voice wasn't in shape, it fit the autumnal quality of Lightfoot's songs. He is wistful, a bit haunted even in his upbeat songs; singing about old records, the cold North, sundowns, wild geese, wanderlust, ships and the winds of November. If Lightfoot was a tree, he'd be a maple at the peak of fall color reminding you that the leaves aren't forever
Lightfoot had a fine four-piece band behind him of musicians who've played with him for decades. These included great guitarist, Detroit native Terry Clements. If you wondered how he was able to play parts like the snakey guitar of "Sundown" so perfectly at Miller, you should know that he's been Lightfoot's main guitarist since 1970.
He played the folk/pop/country hits "Rainy Day People," "Every Highway," "If You Could Read My Mind" and "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." The concert also touched on '60s folkie Lightfoot, like "Early Morning Rain," covered by Elvis Presley. He pointed out it was originally recorded by himself in 1966. Then he gave the hordes "something less ethereal," he said, like the '80s soft rock of "Blackberry Wine" and "Baby Step Back."
He got a big standing ovation, and came back to do a spirited "Old Dan's Records." One could hear some quietly singing along. Those were Gord's Hordes, the fans who are the mellowest in the world of fandom. At the end, they politely stepped aside as everyone else left, to meet with Lightfoot after the show.
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