Loose Leaf Notes

It might be more appropriate to ask, what ever happened to his followers, like me and the rest of Floyd’s alternative community who listened religiously to his (mostly social justice) folk music in the late 80’s and throughout the 90’s.  We stopped for some reason. 

But I should speak for myself because his most recent album was released in 2011 and the concert goers (mostly generational peers) at Friday’s Bruce Cockburn concert at The Lyric Theater seemed to know more songs — cheering at first played chords — than I did.  They called out requests titles that I didn’t recognize, but the above song “Pacing the Cage” was a heartfelt one we knew well enough to sing along with …  Sunset is an angel weeping / Holding out a bloody sword / No matter how I squint I cannot / make out what it’s pointing toward / Sometimes you feel like you live too long / Days drip slowly on the page / You catch yourself / Pacing the cage …

We arrived while a Christmas parade was going on downtown!  A couple of concert goers who had just come from the parade (which was taking place in the rain) had deer antlers or masks on.  Earlier, people celebrated the lighting of the town tree, a large planted tree I once described as a woman in bright red lipstick, back in the day when I spent a lot of time in Blacksburg, working at the Seeds of Light bead store.

I knew Cockburn (a Canadian who went to school in Boston) was a masterful singer songwriter, whose songs have been covered by many, but I didn’t remember from listening to his tapes that he was a virtuoso guitarist.  We, a good sized Floyd contingency, enjoyed his instrumentals as much as his lyrics.  The cool thing was that I could use my camera to zoom in close and see more on video than I could from my actual seat.

The song in the above video clip “Lovers in a Dangerous Time,” could be considered one of Joe’s and my songs. We listened to and sang along with it repeatedly around 1988 when our love was new. 

My current philosophy on entertainment is a lot like how I feel about food. Provide it yourself or get it locally grown whenever possible.  But sometimes a special event is worth leaving the county for.  Over the years, Kurt Vonnegut, Garrison Keillor, Vandana Shiva, William Sloane Coffin, Toni Morrison, the Indigo Girls were all worth the 45 minute drive to Blacksburg to see.  And so was Cockburn. The fact that he played at the historic Lyric Theater was an added plus.