This was from last month. I posted it in my blog and probably should have posted it here sooner but better late than never. Hope you like it.
Right now I’m sitting in my hotel room in Sault Ste Marie. I just got back from a walk around downtown which I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s a beautiful day and the city looks great. I had breakfast at Tim Horton’s then went down to the locks. While there one of those big lake freighters was going through. I then came back. At the moment I’m just waiting for Chris. He should be here in another hour or so.
I left Timmins yesterday morning shortly after 8:30. Firlotte happened to be going to Sudbury so we spent a good part of the day together. We got off the bus at the downtown terminal then took a cab to his hotel. The hotel was conveniently located across the street from Boston Pizza so we went there for lunch. It was kind of strange. We are both unemployed and broke but we still go out of town to have lunch in pricey restaurants. Afterwards I watched the remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and thought it was all right. I’ll have to check out the original at some point. About an hour after that I left Firlotte to go to the bus station.
The trip here was full of delays, as is Chris’s apparently. I got pretty lucky and ended up sitting next to a guy who looks and talks just like Dustin Hoffman. We discussed politics, Canada in general and ancient history. He was on his way to Thunder Bay to see his girlfriend. By the time we got into Blind River about a third of the bus was empty, which was a very good thing. Every seat was full when we left Sudbury and the driver informed us that the air conditioning unit was not working. It became quite warm as I’m sure you can imagine. When we arrived in The Sault the temperature was down to a comfortable level.
I checked in to the hotel shortly before 1 AM. I noticed
Neil Young had arrived before me, and to my surprise he was at the same hotel as me. I have seen a few members of his band walking around but so far no Neil. I slept from about 2 til 7. When I awoke I sent my father birthday greetings as today is his 42nd birthday. Well isn’t that interesting, I am now more than half his age. Quite a strange feeling when you reach that age compared to a parent. Last month he pointed out to me that I was now closer to 30 than he was, he then continued with “you’re more than halfway to 40 now too”.
It is actually my father who is responsible for my appreciation of Neil Young’s music. In fact I had hoped he would join me on this trip but things did not work out. I went to North Bay in March of 2006 for about a week. On that trip he gave me a guitar that I bought through him the month before. He also gave me a book which he used to learn how to play. In it were songs by Jackson Browne, The Eagles and Neil Young. For the first few weeks I focused on The Eagles because at the time they were the band I knew the most of at the time. When I returned to Timmins I bought a “Greatest Hits” collection by Neil Young and listened to it several times on the same day. I had heard most of these songs before on the radio but never realized they were by the same guy. I liked it and it just went from there. Right now I have most of his albums and have read every book about him that I could find. I now rank him number 4 on my top 5. After tonight I will have seen three of my top five. I will never see the other two as they are either dead or broken up.
Neil’s bus has become some sort of pilgrimage site it seems. For most of the morning there has been a steady stream of people coming around and taking pictures of it. There was one couple which stayed around the area for about an hour. They are gone now as far as I can tell. I imagine Chris and I will perform a similar ritual, such a thing is mandatory.
April 18th
Chris arrived shortly before noon. He told me he half expected that my offer was a joke and that I would still be in Timmins. Indeed, I was actually considering sending him a text claiming that that situation was the case while he was on the bus. Unfortunately I decided not to do this. After he dropped his stuff off at the hotel we went out to explore the mall. It was actually quite nice. It was much bigger than I had expected. We bought one of those mini Heineken kegs at the LCBO then realized that we would obviously need glasses. So how did we solve this problem? We went to Dollarama with the keg in hand and bought two glasses for $1.00. We then proceeded to walk around the mall with the keg and two glasses until we decided to leave. I wonder if anyone caught on as to what our intentions for the day were.
Well we were not back at the hotel five minutes before the beer started pouring. I had my laptop so we put the itunes on shuffle while we drank and discussed great things. Our symposium lasted several hours. Eventually we both got hungry and decided to head out to find a place to eat.
This place ended up getting some exotic cuisine at the Pita Pit and walked back to the hotel. While on our journey Chris came around to having the same opinion of this city as I, it is great. The downtown area is full of shops that are open and doing well, the streets are clean and the people are friendly. It made us both dislike Timmins even more than we did before. After eating we both rested for about an hour before heading out to the first concert.
We arrived after the doors opened and headed to the merchandise table. It was quite busy for a long time. Eventually we got through and we bought a few shirts. After that we headed to our seats which were not nearly as good as the diagram online lead me to believe. The main problem was the location of one giant speaker which ended up blocking more than half the band from our view. The women next to us actually were so upset by this that they simple left shortly after the show began.
The opening act was Everest. I had not heard of this band before I bought the tickets for this concert. They looked a lot like The Band circa 1968-69, but didn’t sound anything like that. Their lead singer actually looked like a young Pete Townshend. One of the perks to our seats was that the bands walked directly in front of us when they went on stage and left. We could have had a conversation with them if we wanted to. The lead guitarist was very good to the people who were beside and behind the stage. He acknowledged us several times on stage and tried to get us more excited. It worked.
Shortly after the opening act finished their set, Neil and his band took the stage. He opened with “Love and Only Love” and went on to “Hey Hey My My (Into the Black)”. That was great as the latter was one of the songs I was hoping for. As I said earlier the giant speaker was a bit of a problem and we were directly below the screen so we didn’t have the greatest view of that either. It was enough though. He was doing a very good job. He didn’t talk too much in between songs which was not unexpected. He ended up living up to his reputation of being unpredictable. The sound guys adjacent to the stage and some members of the band didn’t seem to know what was going to happen next. Neil has said in the past that he does not like set lists. He said on Charlie Rose “I don’t want to make them and I don’t want to obey them”. We had a very good view of the drummer who tended to lean forward in between songs, presumably to find out what the next song would be. After doing a few more electric songs, including “Pocahontas” he switched to the acoustic guitar. He performed Ian Tyson’s “Four Strong Winds” along with several of his own. When he performed “Heart of Gold” Chris apparently started to get a little “misty” as he puts it. I enjoy when a good song or concert can do that to me, but it did not happen on this night. Although seeing “Old Man” performed live was definitely a moving experience for me. It was at this time that he played the first of several songs from his latest album ‘Fork in the Road’ which was released only a few weeks ago. From this album he played “Light a Candle” and “Just Singing a Song” which were easily the best from the album. After the acoustic set was over he went into “Cortez the Killer”, “Down By the River” and “Tonight’s the Night”. Neil looks a little worse for wear but he does not sound like it. If you were to listen to the concert without seeing him (which Chris and I did for a good part of it) it would sound just like a live performance from the late 1970s. His voice is still strong and he can still perform those long grunge-like guitar solos. He came out for a one song encore, “When You Dance”. The whole concert had a good balance between old and new songs. He played songs from his second album right up to 2007’s ‘Chrome Dreams II’. After the encore he and his band took their bows and left the stage.
The
Gordon Lightfoot show on the following evening was quite different. I remember when I first heard a Gordon Lightfoot song. It was July of 1999 and the song was “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. I was 11 and did not fully appreciate it at the time but I did develop an interest in the story behind the song. It would be another three years before I actually became more interested in Lightfoot’s music in general. The first album of his I bought was a ‘Greatest Hits’ compilation in December of 2003. I listened to it quite often for the next few months. I later learned that he was been covered by many people including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and even Elvis Presley. I don’t know how many versions I’ve heard of “Early Morning Rain” and “If You Could Read My Mind”. It seems that many people want to put their own twist on these great songs, some of them put on a negative one. When it comes to Gordon Lightfoot songs I seem to always prefer the original as opposed to a cover. When I got my first guitar one of the first songs I tried to learn was “The Ballad of Yarmouth Castle”, another song of his about a maritime disaster. I did succeed but it’s been several years since I’ve played it. When I learned that he would be playing in Sault Ste Marie I had to go. It was convenient given the Neil Young concert, and also it is probably the closest stage to where the Edmund Fitzgerald went down. With this in mind what better venue is there to see Gordon Lightfoot?
He took to the stage shortly after 8 PM. There was no opening act. He opened with “Cotton Jenny” and “14 Karat Gold”. Not a bad way to start. This show was far more intimate than the show from the night before. He would tell us stories about the songs and little anecdotes from his life. He even through in the odd joke. His voice was a little weak at the beginning of the show but after a few songs it seemed to have improved a fair bit. At 70 years old the fact that he is able to perform at all is amazing. Particularly considering he spend over a month in a coma several years ago which he nearly did not wake up from. He now seems to be in good health and in good spirits and is a very charismatic performer. In the first of two 12-song sets he performed “Rainy Day People”, “Sundown” and concluded with “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. I filmed the latter two and the story he told in between the two songs. Considering the subject matter of ‘Edmund Fitzgerald’ I did find the timing of the crowds cheering to be a little strange. Should you chose to watch the video you will see Lightfoot saying “You know Lake Superior does not give up its dead because the water is so cold”. The audience then breaks out into applause. Considering he was talking about the deaths of 29 men the cheering during the story seemed a little disrespectful, particularly with it so close to where we were. After he performed the song there was a short intermission. He then performed another 12-song set followed by a two song encore. For me the best song of the evening was “If You Could Read My Mind”. It is one of my favourites and I was very pleased that he performed it. The final song before the encore was the epic “Canadian Railroad Trilogy”. I read somewhere that Pierre Berton, author of “The National Dream” and “The Last Spike” said that Lightfoot said more with that one song than he could with both of these books. To some extent I suppose that is true. Far more people will hear the song than read these books. (Though if you have not read these books I highly recommend them) It is a great Canadian story. Much to my surprise I still remembered all of the words to the song even though I have not heard it in a few years. After the encore he left the stage and actually came to greet some members of the audience briefly on the floor. I was not expecting that. Unfortunately I was too far away and did not get to meet him but I was very happy with his performance.
Ultimately I would say that seeing these two was great. Lightfoot said that he considered himself very lucky to still be able to do this at his age. I feel just as lucky at having had this opportunity. I hope it comes again but if it doesn’t at least I’ve had this. Had things gone a little differently a few years ago I may have only seen one of them, or perhaps neither. Most of the performers I want to see are either dead or no longer performing so I’m doing my best to see the ones that are still around before it’s too late.
Unfortunately I do not have information on what the Gordon Lightfoot set list was aside from my memory. I don’t remember all 26 songs but I do have an accurate list for the Neil Young concert. Here it is:
Love and Only Love /
Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) / Are You Ready For The Country? / Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere / Pocahontas / Spirit Road / Cortez The Killer / Cinnamon Girl / Mother Earth / The Needle And The Damage Done /
Light a Candle /
Four Strong Winds / Unknown Legend /
Heart of Gold /
Old Man / Speakin' Out / Tonight's The Night / Down By The River / Get Behind The Wheel /
Just Singing A Song //
When You Dance You Can Really Love
Should you wish to see the videos I made they can all be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/WLDB Also I will be posting them individually on facebook as I upload them.
Gordon Lightfoot
2. Bill Evans - The Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings (4) 3. The Shins - Wincing the Night Away (4) 
