The lights fade at precisely 8 o’clock, and out to the stage he saunters, a stick figure in high-waisted jeans and a red velvet jacket, his right hip thrust forward, wispy grey mane combed back, a 12-string guitar slung over his shoulder.

It’s Gordon. Flipping. Lightfoot. The Living Legend. Live at Massey Hall for the 152nd time, paler and more croaky than he used to be, but the fans here to see him know what to expect.

In the front row, a woman with a cap of silver hair takes a deep breath. “Here we go,” she whispers as the crowd rises in a pre-show standing ovation.

Her name is Charlene Westbrook, but the folks here just call her Char. She is a Gordon Lightfoot superfan, part of a group of devotees from across the globe who call themselves “Lightfoot lifers” and plan their vacations around his touring schedule. Char, 59, has seen him in concert more times than she can count, but definitely north of 100. She is from Massey-handy Whitby, but her pals in the audience tonight have come from as far away as California, Germany and Brazil.

For the true fan who can afford to make the pilgrimage to Toronto, Lightfoot at Massey Hall is a right of passage. Char calls this place the Church of Gord, and she is a proud disciple.

“Every time he plays, I find my pew and I’m giving thanks,” she says.

She has sat in quiet rapture in these rickety seats nearly every year he has performed since her first show in 1975. Tonight she holds in her lap a small notebook and pen for jotting down the set list anda palm-sized digital camera for the discreet recording of anything new and unusual.The people who can’t be here are counting on her to document it all for corfid.com, the fan site she moderates.

Lightfoot opens with “Now and Then,” hitting some notes and missing others, but Char taps her foot all the same. She knows it takes a while to warm up sometimes. And yes, his voice isn’t the smooth baritone it used to be, but it sounds just fine to her.

“Of course his voice is different — he’s 76!” she says. “The voice suits the songs more because it’s a voice that has been lived in.”

Char organized the purchase of 75 tickets for last week’s four-night Massey Hall run: four for herself, two for her daughter, Lisa, and the rest for fellow Lightfoot disciples who have come from afar.

For this crew, Lightfoot at Massey Hall is unmissable. They will sit through all four shows, from Wednesday to Saturday, because who knows how long it will last? The health scare in 2002 and the false reports of his death in 2010 have made each performance seem more important.

Two weeks before opening night, Char is at home in Whitby sorting through a basket of Lightfoot ticket stubs and set lists, three decades worth of memorabilia. “I always was a keeper,” she says cheerfully.

Char is a daycare provider whose toddler charges sing along to “Alberta Bound” and can name the man who wrote it: Gordon Light-put.

She is a stained glass hobbyist who recently made a 3D wall hanging of a line of sheet music from “Beautiful” for Pee Wee Charles, Lightfoot’s former pedal steel guitar player, a man she befriended a few years back.

She is a mom whose 26-year-old daughter shares her enthusiasm for the living legend, but whose older son, despite having attended a Lightfoot show at Massey Hall in 1984 while still in the womb, emerged with more raucous musical tastes, which doesn’t so much disappoint Char as bewilder her.

The walls in her TV room are adorned with Lightfoot art — Gord on a stamp, Gord onstage, Gord on the bill at Massey Hall. There used to be more but she toned it down.

In the basement she has every Lightfoot album ever recorded, on vinyl, cassette and CD. In a special frame she keeps a 45 of “If You Could Read My Mind,” which for Char is how it all started, in 1971. She was a heartbroken teen growing up in Etobicoke when she first heard him on the radio. That voice. Those words!

Char danced to “Beautiful” at her wedding in 1977. Twenty-five years later, the songs and friendships developed through Lightfoot’s music helped her carry on after divorce. By then Char had entered the online age of her fandom. Things accelerated quickly after she got the Internet.

“The first thing I did was type in Gordon Lightfoot,” Char says. “And up popped this website and a news group. All these people were on there talking about Lightfoot and I thought, ‘Oh my God. I’m not the only one.’ ”

A few years later she found herself hosting a backyard barbecue for 60 strangers, Lightfoot fans from Australia, Austria, England and across the United States, many of whom are now her friends.They had all come to town for a Lightfoot convention organized by Jenney Rivard, a fan from Connecticut, and timed to his 2001 Massey Hall run.

Over the years, Char and her crew have become friendly with members of the band and their families, including Lightfoot, who Char has spoken to a few dozen times. She and others get backstage passes for many of the shows they attend, and he’s always been generous with his time. He knows Char by name and refers to the larger fan group as the “Net people” (Net as in Internet). He has sung an old song for Char after she asked him to bring it back into the mix — “I’ll Tag Along,” one of her favourites.

She has no romantic feelings for the man, just an intense appreciation for the music and all the positive things it has brought into her life. Not everyone understands her fandom, but that’s fine with Char.

“Behind my back I’m sure some people think, ‘Oh my God, what a waste,’ ” she says with a shrug. “But we all have our things that get us through the day, make our life a little bit better.”

On opening night, an hour before Lightfoot kicks off the show with “Now and Then,” Char and five other fan friends are at a pub, talking about a brilliant line from that very song.

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Once inside we found a curious moonbeam/Doing dances on the floor

“Who the hell thinks of that?” asks Deb Brinkley, a dog rescuer from Colorado who flew in for the weekend. The 58-year-old fan is wearing a T-shirt adorned with the giant face of a Siberian husky.

“The man is a musical genius,” says Anne Przykucki, a 34-year-old grant manager from Michigan, the baby of the group. Her Lightfoot fan origin story is among the best: Przykucki’s mother listened to him perform on TV in the hospital when she was in labour, so baby Anne was literally born a fan. She first came to Massey to see him when she was 17.

Everyone here has been making the Toronto trip for years. Jenney Rivard from Connecticut. Donnie Budd from Texas. Lori Uffner from Florida. None are rich; this is just how they choose to spend their vacations. With Lightfoot and with each other. Over the years they have become a family, and this is their reunion.

“A lot of friendships have been forged and a couple of marriages, too,” says Uffner, a Floridian with a thick accent carried over from her early life in Long Island, N.Y. A fan from England wed a fan from New Jersey.

They all say they never tire of Lightfoot, even after four nights in a row.

“Bored of Gord?” says Brinkley the dog rescuer. “No.

“We go every night because there might be something different.”

Once there was an audience fist fight in Burlington, Vt. Another time, at Massey, a guy fell asleep in an aisle seat near the front and Gord paused during “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” to draw attention to him. “And many are the dead men . . . ” he sang. “There’s one now!”

They have seen some pretty theatres and some pretty terrible ones. Sometimes it’s the subtle things that stand out, like if the band plays a song a way they’ve never heard it before.For the close watcher, there’s always a surprise.

The fans get their surprise after intermission, when Lightfoot walks out onstage, sans guitar, with Massey Hall CEO Charles Cutts and the Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Ontario’s new Lieutenant Governor.

They are there to present Lightfoot with the inaugural Massey Hall Honours award, to celebrate his 152nd performance — more than anyone else in the venue’s history

It’s an awkward delivery. Lightfoot nods as the presenters offer lengthy praise, calling him an ambassador who has helped create and shape the Canadian identity. But the fans love it, and Char captures a quick video for the fan website.

Lightfoot has changed into a blue velvet jacket for the second set. Midway through,the band strikes the first few chords of that old classic Char has been waiting for, “If You Could Read My Mind.”

It’s a song that has been a part of her life for 44 years, as long as the man who wrote it has. Char bows her head in appreciation. Then she smiles and sings along.

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