Rating: Summary: A little disappointing.... Review: The audio and video quality of the DVD is excellent. I liked everything about it EXCEPT Gordon Lightfoot's voice. I will admit that I have never seem him before and have been a long time fan through his older albums only. It was news to me that his voice has changed so much. It is higher and much more nasal. I realized I was expecting to hear the voice that had sent chills up my spine and had touched my heart so many times. No disrespect intended to Mr. Lightfoot but I was disappointed.
Rating: Summary: Mediocre Performance Review: This concert is mediocre at best. Gordon's voice in many of the songs does not really bring out the best in him. I was somewhat disappointed in this production.
Rating: Summary: Mediocre Performance Review: This concert is mediocre at best. Gordon's voice in many of the songs does not really bring out the best in him. I was somewhat disappointed in this production.
Rating: Summary: best of the best Review: This DVD seemed to display all of my favorite Gordon Lightfoot songs in a well- orchestrated order that flowed flawlessly from beginning to end. I hated for it to end.
Rating: Summary: Live Lightfoot Review: This is a wonderful DVD. For those of us who have seen him in concert throughout his career, this is an excellent example of Lightfoot now, and it feels like a Lightfoot concert (yes, there are rude people in the audience who insist on yelling "Rock and Roll", even in Massey Hall.) Lightfoot's voice is different than it once was, not better or worse but different. Perhaps one of the very best things about this is the musicans who are a part of Lightfoot's show. They back him up without being obtrusive, functioning like a well oiled machine. Probably hard core Lightfoot fans will appreciate this more than people who remember him only for "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", but it is a pleasure to see Lightfoot perform.
Rating: Summary: Whither Canada? Review: What distinguishes Gordon Lightfoot from every other singer songwriter who came to fame from the sixties is that he has stayed the course. His music reflects the observatuions of a Don Quixote who has charged at windmills and suffered pain and loss, found solace at the helm of his sailboat along the Canadian lakes or in the call of a ring neck loon. His are the shadows of a lover at the door of his beloved, the remembrances of a man whose lover leaves in the early morning hours. He has chronicled the wreck of ships and loss of lives, the loneliness of the hitchhiker who has fallen through the cracks of society, or the families of those in prison. The human factor has ever and always been the domain of Gordon Lightfoot, and in that regard he is very much a Graham Greene as Troubador, in as classical a sense of the word as possible. He has written the real Canadian National anthem and has pleaded with the cultural forces within Canada to stay together. His voice carries the mist of the maritimes, the grandeur of the Rockies, the solitude of the great Ontario wilderness. If you want to know what Canada is, you need only listen to Gordon Lightfoot. He is the crucible of all post war Canadian music. It is as inconceivable to imagine where Canadian writers might have gone without him as it is to imagine where American writers might have gone without Woody Guthrie or Charlie Patton. So, on this DVD, Gordon presents his music as he always has: it is ever and always about the songs, and the songs are ever and always about real people. No special effects, no Spinal Tap set pieces, just a band of men who know what they are talking about, presenting their take and their observations on the road thus far, and what the journey of life has revealed to them. His and his colleagues musicianship is as first rate as it has always been. They present a textbook case of what can happen when musicians listen to each other. This tightly locked groove would find itself the calling card of every great Canadian band from The Band through Bare Naked Ladies, and this is the guy who started it all. Gordon's voice is not as strong as it once was, but there is no lack of conviction in his delivery. What you get from this DVD is a vision of the genuine article. The history of modern Canada is on Gordon's face, his voice calls out with the passion and conviction of someone who knows his heritage and dares to dream of its future. In the small theatre of the heart and the soul, Gordon details the travails, the slings and arrows, the sanctuaries and solace of a life in touch with the world in which he lives. This is Farley Mowat and Robertson Davies in verse and music, and in performance it is all about the subtleties. He is often self-deprecating, has battled his share of demons and has wished for all he's worth to have had things turn out better. He has composed lullabies for children and homages to old family musicians. He is at one with the natural world and in battle with those forces that would rob us of our human dignity. He is that ghost in the wishing well, Alberta bound, standing in a knightly pose along the shore, shouting. It is a blessing to hear and see him. We tend to seek out our national treasures after they've passed or once their powers have diminished. This DVD presents one of the great treasures of Canada delivering his music as he always has, with everything he's got. Through the woodlands, through the valleys, comes a horseman, wild and free.... indeed.
Rating: Summary: Why did we have to wait so long for the DVD Review: WOw this brings back some wonderful memories - I saw GL in Australia, in 1974 I think it was - this is a great DVD, the sound and clarity is great and the guitar work excellent. The only concern I have is that I will wear it out - it is really great to watch him perform Early Morning Rain over and over again...probably one of the best songs ever written - certainly along there with the Boxer and Blowing in the Wind..
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