Lightfoot in harmony at show
Saturday, October 22, 2005
By JENNFIER MOSKAL
NORTHAMPTON - Gordon Lightfoot offered fans a show full of his characteristic sound Thursday, although his voice at times was too low to be heard.
The audience at the Calvin Theater greeted the band with enthusiastic applause, and when Lightfoot walked out on stage the crowd gave him the first of the night's many standing ovations.
Lightfoot performed with a backing group of four musicians and provided the audience with over two dozen tunes both old and new during the two hour performance.
The audience often struggled to hear the lyrics as well as much of what Lightfoot said, and while it improved slightly during the second set several members of the audience complained about the sound levels during the show.
The characteristic mellow sounds of Lightfoot's music were heard throughout the evening, in "Restless," "The Ghost of Cape Horn," and "Early Morning Rain."
Lightfoot joked about all the rain that the area has been seeing on many occasions during the evening, and before he played "Song For A Winter's Night," he prefaced it by saying he hoped it didn't get too cold in the immediate future.
Lightfoot laughed during "Sundown," as he forgot a portion of the lyrics near the end of the song, which also elicited applause and laughter from the crowd.
Several songs were followed by crowd members standing and providing wild applause, including "Beautiful," "Canadian Railroad Trilogy," and "If You Could Read My Mind."
Other popular songs with the crowd included, "Cotton Jenny," "Rainy Day People," and "Don Quixote."
Lightfoot prefaced "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," with a brief story about how the song came about. "Back in 1975, there was a large ship that went down - the wind was blowing real hard in Toronto, and I just wrote it all down in chronological order."
Lightfoot featured a few songs from his 2004 release, "Harmony," including the title track and "Clouds of Loneliness."
http://www.masslive.com/entertainmen...470.xml&coll=1
