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BARRIE - Well, the long-anticipated appearance by the 59-year-old folk rocker was worth the wait.
After he had to miss his performance at the Juno Awards this April because of surgery for a brain aneurysm, Neil Young turned up in Barrie to close Live 8 Canada with both simple and elaborate renditions of songs.
He began with Ian Tyson's Four Strong Winds on acoustic guitar with his wife, Peggy, at his side before moving into a pretty, delicate new song, When God Made Me, playing piano and backed by a bassist and the Fisk University Jubilee Choir.
And just when you thought Young was packing it in, he returned for a giddy all-star finale of Keep On Rockin' In The Free World, with members of Blue Rodeo, The Tragically Hip, Barenaked Ladies, Our Lady Peace, Jet, Bruce Cockburn, DMC, and others all taking their turn at the mic.
To me that would have been the perfect ending, but then BNL's Steven Page broke into the national anthem and everyone followed along.
While it was sweet to see all those waving Canadian flags, it seemed to shift the focus of this global event back to our country. Some would say that's not such a bad thing.
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