St.John's NFLD>-April 25-26-2014

[charlene]

Rick says: Ok, here we go with the 2014 Canadian Tour! Personally, I love coming to "The Rock", Newfoundland. I hope the weather clears before we have to leave so I can go up Signal Hill and look for an iceberg or two. This is a real nice theater that we last played way back in 1983.

[BILLW]

It looks like a lovely venue - wish we were there!

Bill

[paskatefan]

Nice of Rick to post his thoughts about the different venues!

[lighthead2toe]

He was there in Nov. 1967 with John Stockfish.

Just the two of them.

Red Shea, his lead guitar player wasn't available for that gig so Gord being the ultimate professional just kicked in there with his choice of selective lead guitar licks.

I remember he just blew the audience away when he picked out the lead solo in "Bitter Green." I think it was around that period when "Bitter Green" was released as a single so it was getting lots of air play.

Gord and John arrived on the "red eye" (night flight in Newfoundland lingo) and the weather was cold, wet and windy.

The St. John's airport was alive with well wishers though and I was one.

They were a both a bit tired so with the help of the crew that booked them they gathered up their belongings and headed off to get some sleep and prepare for that night's show which was sold out.

I was living in Toronto at the time but arranged my holidays from work to accommodate that concert back in my home province.

That's the way it was for me in those glorious "Early Lightfoot" days.

I was just learning to play finger style on the guitar so I was on a roll like you wouldn't believe going to every possible Lightfoot concert I could fandangle my way to attend.

What a fantastic era!

Oh, to be young again...sigh......

[johnfowles]

Originally Posted by lighthead2toe

He was there in Nov. 1967 with John Stockfish.

Just the two of them.

Red Shea, his lead guitar player wasn't available for that gig so Gord being the ultimate professional just kicked in there with his choice of selective lead guitar licks.

I remember he just blew the audience away when he picked out the lead solo in "Bitter Green." I think it was around that period when "Bitter Green" was released as a single

That is a wondeful memory Ron
However I think you just might have got your dates a tad mixed up??
I am pretty sure he wrote Bitter Green on a later trip to the UK in fact I think he introduced the song during the great 1969 CBC recording of that year's Charlottetown Festival as being about the "heroine of Pigs Eye Minnesota" (the present day St Pauls)
and then described writing it during the ride into London from the airport

[charlene]

2nd nite:

[lighthead2toe]

Originally Posted by johnfowles

That is a wondeful memory Ron
However I think you just might have got your dates a tad mixed up??
I am pretty sure he wrote Bitter Green on a later trip to the UK in fact I think he introduced the song during the great 1969 CBC recording of that year's Charlottetown Festival as being about the "heroine of Pigs Eye Minnesota" (the present day St Pauls)
and then described writing it during the ride into London from the airport

Hi John.

Thanks for your input here and I really enjoy keeping these kind of posts alive, especially when folks like us still are.

After all, we're from that early generation and some mornings when I get up these days I think I might just be degenerating. Ya know, the creaks & groans that attack aging dudes like us.

I'm still searching for more stuff from my archive collection about "Bitter Green" mainly because I distinctly recall being at a concert in the high school of a small town called Alliston, Ontario, just a bit south of Gord's hometown of Orillia and it was in the "more mid" as opposed to "the late" sixties.

We drove from Toronto to the town of Alliston early enough to sort out where the drinking establishments were so we could have a bevvy or two before the concert.

Good luck. Welcome to the dry town of Alliston (at least in those days)

But no worries, one of our crew had a pass to get us into the local "Canadian Legion Club."

He was a former member of the Canadian Forces but still had his "Legion pass" and with some convincing and (you know what) we had beers on our table.

After a few wet ones we were off to the concert.

It was at that concert when I heard "Bitter Green" the very first time.

Gord was there with John and Red and I remember so well after they did that number the applause was long and loud.

I could see the proud look Gord gave the audience and he even said questionly "isn't that a good song, yes, it's a good song!"

It's my favourite Gordon Lightfoot song today.

More on this one when the bitter gets a tad sweeter.

[lighthead2toe]

After a soothing and relaxing dip in the think tank the date came through as 1969 as opposed to 1967 for the Arts and Culture concert in St. John's, Nfld. so thank you John and I stand corrected on that one.

My thoughts are all in spin.

I used to save all my Lightfoot concert tickets but during the moves across the country some of my stuff was lost and unfortunately the tickets disappeared so just gave up trying to save them after that.

The concert in the Alliston high school was either 1968 or 69.