2011 Tour Summary
Gordon Lightfoot logs
one more long and impressive year on the road.
Bob Dylan's touring schedule since the mid-80's has been dubbed "The
Neverending Tour". Lightfoot, for his part, has been on his own
Neverending Tour
since the mid-60's. Considering only a brief respite in 1972 to recover
from Bell's
Palsey, the entire year of 1986 to record East Of Midnight and 2003 and
most of 2004 to
recover from serious illness - other than that, Lightfoot's Neverending
Tour is just business as usual where he is concerned!
For the first time since 1971,
Lightfoot's touring band travelled
without their lead guitarist extraorindaire, Terry Clements. In
February, a few short weeks before they were to hit the road, Terry
passed away suddenly in Toronto. Terry will be forever remembered as an
unsurpassed musician and an integral component of the Lightfoot sound.
His recordings with Lightfoot will stand the test of time and allow him
to live on in our hearts and minds.
Carter Lancaster takes Terry's place on stage and filled in more than admirably, making the transition virtually seamless, all the while adding his own unique touches to the songs we all know so well. Welcome Carter! In total in 2011, Lightfoot played 64 concerts in 59 cities throughout the US and Canada in 2011, eighteen fewer concerts than in 2010. There 9 casino style concerts of one extended set, while the remaing 55 were two sets with intermission. He began the year again in March in the US southeast and northeast, then an Ontario tour culminating at Massey Hall in May. He was off for the summer, returning to the road in September in the US northeast and midwest. In November he headed west, first in the US, then western Canada, working his was east to Ontario, finishing up in early December. Openers included Sweet Guinevere, Did She Mention My Name and Triangle. Encores were quite varied, but the ever reliable Old Dan's Records was limited to only 3 performances. Red Velvet was performed twice in Alberta in honour of Ian Tyson. Another song played less frequently over the year was Triangle. There were no new or previously
unreleased songs performed in 2011. Not since the pre-illness days of
2002 has new material been introduced in concert. The album Shadows was once again the
most drawn upon source for material, both in terms of different songs
utilized and
total unique plays. There were 43 different songs
performed over the course of the year, harvested from eighteen of his
twenty studio albums, leaving only two studio albums
entirely shut
out, that being Back Here On Earth and Salute. |
SONG
SUMMARY BY ALBUM
Here are
how the setlists break down by album.