Leonard Cohen

[A. Clay]

Leonard Cohen plays first US concert in 15 years

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By JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment Writer –

Fri Feb 20, 1:08 am ET

 

NEW YORK – Leonard Cohen played his first U.S. concert in 15 years, returning with a two-set, six-encore, three-hour long performance that the singer called "a memorable evening."

 

The 74-year-old Montreal-born singer, poet and novelist drew countless standing ovations at New York's Beacon Theatre on Thursday night.

"It's been a long time since I stood up on this stage in New York City," Cohen said, addressing the crowd for the first time ten songs in. "I was 60 years-old, just a kid with a crazy dream. Since then I've taken a lot of Prozac."

 

While the audience roared, Cohen proceeded to list a dozen or so more drugs that have comforted him in his old age, as well as his hard study of religions and philosophies, "but cheerfulness kept breaking through."

The concert was much the same, too.

 

Singing his serene and melancholy ballads, the always well-dressed Cohen performed with passionate restraint, often kneeling as he clutched the microphone — or when standing, his knees bent inward against each other, as if he would otherwise crumble.

 

He repeatedly doffed his black hat (which naturally matched his black suit) in courtesy to his three backup singers and six-piece backing band, whose talents were often on display in brief, melodic solos throughout the evening.

Cohen cheered the sold-out crowd performing most of his best known material, like, "Suzanne," "So Long, Marianne," "Bird on a Wire," "First We Take Manhattan" and "Hallelujah," which Jeff Buckley famously covered and which more recently has been covered on, of all things, "American Idol."

Cohen's voice has perhaps settled even deeper into the lower registers as time has past, but it has lost nothing of its powerfulness. A long wait to see him perform again is fitting because Cohen is something of a perfectionist, regularly taking more than a year to finish a song.

 

His lean, taut songs sounded particularly apt in such a time of economic recession. At one point, Cohen told the crowd he understood that hard times were coming, then drolly adding, "some say even worse than Y2K."

Cohen knows something about economic downturns: He is touring partly because he learned in 2005 that his longtime former manager Kelley Lynch, had misappropriated millions from his retirement fund. In 2006, a Los Angeles court awarded him $9.5 million. It's not believed that he recovered any of it.

 

Cohen has been widely feted in recent years. When he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year, Lou Reed said he was among the "highest and most influential echelon of songwriters." In the 2005 documentary "Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man," which featured a tribute concert to Cohen, Bono called him, speaking for music, "our (Percy Bysshe) Shelley, our (Lord) Byron."

 

Cohen has already toured Canada, Europe and Australia and will continue playing several dozen North America concerts through the spring. A live CD and DVD "Leonard Cohen: Live in London" is to be released March 31.

 

~I'M YOUR MAN~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPUnexRUD4U&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999

Edited February 20, 2009 by A. Clay

[Niki27]

I love this guy.

When I had to do this "25 greatest songs of all time" list on Facebook last week, Everybody knows was one of the first songs I thought of

[A. Clay]

I love this guy.

When I had to do this "25 greatest songs of all time" list on Facebook last week, Everybody knows was one of the first songs I thought of

Here's a little "I'm Your Man" . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r24_T-HOcyg&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999

 

and "Hallelujah" . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJTiXoMCppw&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999

Edited February 20, 2009 by A. Clay

[A. Clay]

~DANCE ME TO THE END OF LOVE~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pA5UhNaYw0&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999

FINAL NOTE FROM THE MAN HIMSELF:

'Dance Me To The End Of Love' ... it's curious how songs begin because the origin of the song, every song, has a kind of grain or seed that somebody hands you or the world hands you and that's why the process is so mysterious about writing a song. But that came from just hearing or reading or knowing that in the death camps, beside the crematoria, in certain of the death camps, a string quartet was pressed into performance while this horror was going on, those were the people whose fate was this horror also. And they would be playing classical music while their fellow prisoners were being killed and burnt. So, that music, "Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin," meaning the beauty there of being the consummation of life, the end of this existence and of the passionate element in that consummation. But, it is the same language that we use for surrender to the beloved, so that the song -- it's not important that anybody knows the genesis of it, because if the language comes from that passionate resource, it will be able to embrace all passionate activity.

Edited February 20, 2009 by A. Clay

[A. Clay]

Leonard Cohen and band playing Hallelujah at the Beacon Theater in New York on February 19th, 2009 . . . It was an amazing performance.

 

and also

FIRST WE TAKE MANHATTAN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MObKR4pFuC8&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6

Edited February 22, 2009 by A. Clay

[A. Clay]

http://www.leonardcohen.com/

Tour dates on this site!