Gordon Lightfoot
RP and I saw Gordon Lightfoot in concert at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills last night, Oct. 21, 2009.
I’d never heard of The Canyon Club before RP received a promotional offer a month or so ago with some pretty attractive discounts, so she sprang for it. It doesn’t look like much from the outside – just off the 101 in a shopping center dedicated to mostly antique stores, which just happened to match the several hundred people who were in attendance last night. It’s sort of a dinner/night club. Tickets are issued as standing room only, but if you also make a reservation for dinner, you’re pretty sure to have a seat with a great view of the stage. It’s an intimate setting, with capacity at around 1250. However, the food is decidedly NOT the reason to go – overpriced and just not that good.
I’ve seen Gordon Lightfoot in concert quite a few times over the years, and all those concerts were after his vocal peak in the ’70s and ’80s and I’d not seen him since his near-fatal health problems some five years ago. In all those concerts, it was evident that his voice was not as strong as when he was in his prime. Even so, I was really shocked at how thin and reedy his voice has become. At the beginning of the concert, his singing was almost a whisper, and he’s lost both the upper and lower ranges of his formerly-robust baritone. There were flashes of richness from time to time as the performance continued, but they proved to be short-lived. He made some modifications to some of the melodies to avoid having to sing the highest notes, but he has so far refused to sing these songs in a lower key, which does not surprise me, knowing his penchant for perfection.
Otherwise, it was a solid Lightfoot concert, all the hits, all received with great warmth by his appreciative audience. He told some corny jokes – ‘Why is the moon pale? Because it was out all night’ – his stage patter has never been much to write home about. He played his six-string as well as two twelve-strings, one capoed at the second fret, the other at the third.
He was backed by the same band I’ve always seen with him – Mike Heffernan on keys, Rick Haynes on thumping bass, Barry Keane on drums and the superlative Terry Clements on lead guitar. No real surprises in the set list, which lasted nearly two hours without a break, ending with the classic ‘Canadian Railroad Trilogy’ and an encore, ‘Blackberry Wine’.
This was the seventeenth of twenty dates in 26 days, and he’s headed for his traditional homecoming concert series at Massey Hall in Toronto in November. I was glad to see him this one last time, but I think that will indeed be the last time – I’d prefer to remember the stronger performances of the past and of course his huge catalog of recordings.
