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| Jeffrey and Jennifer Tabor, foreground, drove up from Horseheads to hear Gordon Lightfoot perform Thursday, March 31, at Foothills, an indication of the performing arts center’s ability to draw regionally. |
Everyone got a sense of what might be – all 700 of them drawn to the Foothills Performing Arts Center to hear folk legend Gordon Lightfoot sing the old favorites.
“Early Morning Rain,” “If You Could Read My Mind,” “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” brought particularly strong rounds of applause. And while the voice wasn’t what it used to be, the guitar playing was crisp and strong.
“He doesn’t have his voice anymore. But we came here to celebrate the man,” said John Kosmer of Fly Creek, who brought a copy of “Lightfoot!”, his hero’s debut 1966 album, in hopes of getting it autographed.
Foothills executive director Janet Hurley Quackenbush agreed, “It was really so much more than a concert: It was a tribute to a legendary artist singer songwriter and poet.”
Not to mention, “it definitely will be profitable,” she said, although she didn’t have an immediate tally. And the acoustical drapes used in the performance remain with Foothills permanently.
For his part, a buoyed Mayor Dick Miller declared Foothills open for business.
“I’ve expressed to Tom Cormier and Jon Weiss and Ben Guenther and to others, ‘Come on down. We’re there. We’re ready to go.’ We’ll pay a broker’s commission; we’re anxious to have this kind of activity.”
Guenther, proprietor of Five Star Subaru and a patron of the local arts, suggested Lightfoot to Weiss, a promoter who has partnered with Oneonta Theatre owner Tom Cormier in attracting acts there.
With this concert, and with perhaps as many as a dozen a year, Weiss, with Cormier’s blessing, plans to use his contacts to the benefit of Foothills as well.
Weiss, who called it “a flawless night, really,” said he hopes of have particulars on the next proposal within a week or two.
The door opened at 5 on Thursday, March 31, and people immediately began to gather in Foothills’ glass-walled atrium, snacking on offerings from The Depot restaurant and partaking of the bar’s offerings.
Emily Phillips Knapp of Oneonta, there with her grown-up son Jesse Phillips, recalled breaking up for the first time to Lightfoot’s lyrics: “I don’t know where we went wrong/but the feeling’s gone/and I just can’t get it back.”
By 6:45, the queue had formed. Right in the front were Joe Alberico and Barb DeAngelo of Utica, who said they’ve travelled throughout Upstate – Turning Stone, the Stanley, the Troy Music Hall, the Proctor – when Lightfoot plays.
“There’s not a day that we don’t listen to Gordon Lightfoot,” said Joe, who was wearing a T-shirt signed by the singer and all his band members.
“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” said Barb: “He knows all the words to that song.”
The night – and the first full house in Foothills’ main venue – were particularly heartening to people who have toiled for a decade in the creation of the $7 million performing arts and civic center, including Arnie Drogen, the board’s vice chair, who was shaking hands with people at the door.
Huemac Garcia, the Catskill Area Hospice & Palliative Care director of development, arranged to have images e-mailed him the next morning so he could fire them off to Gene Bettiol Sr., who made a fortune developing the Southside and has used much of it for community good.
In advance of this debut, Bettiol had made sure the decrepit former L.P. Butts hardware store and the abandoned former Planned Parenthood headquarters in front of the atrium had been razed, opening up a dramatic view of the new building to fans approaching on South Market Street.
When the concert began, the audience gasped at the drapes and lights that gave the main theater a look to rival any similar venue. Every seat was full; 75 chairs had been added along the outside aisles to supplement the 625 plush theater seats.
Mayor Miller caught the mood.
“This is the first night of the rest of our lives,” he said.
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| Legendary Gordon Lightfoot filled the main theater at Foothills Performing Arts & Civic Center for the first time, launching a new era at the $7 million downtown Oneonta facility in style the evening of Thursday, March 31. Here, Lightfoot accepts applause as “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” leads into intermission. |
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