Last evening we were part of a sold-out audience of adoring geezers for the Bruce Cockburn concert in Kingston. Cockburn lives in California now but he's making his way across Ontario in a demanding schedule which is impressive for a 79-year-old. Cockburn is a poet who happens to be an excellent musician and we've appreciated his music for nigh on 50 years.
The concert was a retrospective of those years but it also included new songs -- good ones --and new instruments. He's always had a social conscience and we had a reminder of this with Stolen Land, almost 40 years old and written well before the emphasis on reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
1979
What really hit me was the enduring emphasis on love and acceptance and on spiritual openness, often through the beauty of Creation. His most recent album, his 27th, is called O Sun, O Moon, a very Francis of Assisi title, and that's the name for his tour. Cockburn grew up in the United Church (I only recently learned this), had a period in evangelical Christianity, then a "spiritual but not religious" period, and is now part of a progressive Christian community with his wife and daughter.
Bruce ambled onto the stage using two canes and with a pronounced widower's hump, perhaps the outcome of childhood spina bifada. He admits to being in daily pain. He may have looked like Father Time but his passion and poeticism and muscial prowess made this a refreshing and inspiring experience.
Oh yes, the audience singalong with Wondering Where the Lions Are was sweet. I may have been the only person who didn't know all the lyrics!
1976
ILLUSTRATION BY ASHLEY FLORÉAL for the Globe and Mail
2 comments:
It was a memorable evening of inspiring music, new and old. After one song which included some truly virtuosic guitar playing an audience member yelled out, "Ladies and gentleman you have just heard a living legend." And Bruce laughed and said, " Actually I'd prefer to be living rather than be a legend."
Loved his 3rd encore piece (When the Spirit walks in the Room) with the line "We're the threads upon the loom."
That was a light moment, Shirley, and one of several where we heard his wry humour. Thanks for sharing the name of the song -- we both really appreciated it.
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