"And the whole damn place goes crazy twice ..."
So, the Leonard Cohen show. As I mentioned some time ago, I did try to get tickets back when they first went on sale, and had no luck. Which was disappointing, especially since I was hoping to give one to my mother as a Mother's Day present.
As it worked out, though, an old friend of hers is really ill so she wouldn't have come to town for the show anyway. So I guess better to have the disappointment early.
However, yesterday I was talking to a professional colleague about something else entirely and he mentioned he knew someone who, due to illness in their group, was looking to sell a Cohen ticket for face value. So I called, and I got the ticket.
The show was at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium, kind of a little jewel in terms of sound quality and sight lines. I've had some good times there. It was not, however, nearly as great in terms of seats, which means today I am a bit gimped up again.
I'll live.
The show started pretty much on the dot of eight, and the first standing ovation of the night occurred at about 8:01, when Cohen walked onstage in a dapper suit and fedora, looking like a cross between a Buddhist monk and Michael Corleone. He was warm and gracious, much like Kris Kristofferson when I saw him, and he seemed quite touched by the nearly-ecstatic reception he and his songs received. The nine-piece band was a terrific unit and Cohen introduced each member repeatedly, pointing them out by name as they finished solos, so that by the end of the evening we were beginning to know them by name. There was a definite feeling of a real band playing together, although Cohen was the obvious, effortless focus of attention.
As the woman I got the ticket from remarked, I hope I am half that cool when I am Cohen's age. He's always been more of a vocal stylist than a singer, but in fact the older he gets the more texture his voice has. It's deep and raspy and he's sometimes hard to understand when he speaks because some words hover at the bottom of my hearing range, but it is a captivating and strangely beautiful sound. The audience had the habit of reacting to specific lyrics as if they were addressed straight to us, and Cohen took that up a little so some songs had the quality of soliloquies in Shakespeare, as he stepped into the footlights as if only we could hear him.
I scribbled down the setlist in the back of a notebook and was surprised at how many of the songs I knew. Some were rearranged or given new introductions but the majority of the audience was harder to fool than me and twigged immediately to most. There was almost no singing along. The woman behind me actually squeaked with delight when he began "So Long Marianne." I think I teared up over "Suzanne," and I have no idea why.
Just a wonderful show. I'm so grateful I lucked into that ticket!
Set List
Set #1
Dance Me To the End Of Love
The Future
Ain't No Cure For Love
Bird On A Wire
Everybody Knows
In My Secret Life
Who By Fire
Anthem Break
Set #2
Tower Of Song
Suzanne
The Gypsy's Wife
Boogie Street
Hallelujah
Democracy
I'm Your Man
Take This Waltz Encore #1
Heart With No Companion
So Long Marianne
First We Take Manhattan Encore #2
That Don't Make It Junk
Closing Time Encore #3
I Tried To Leave You
As it worked out, though, an old friend of hers is really ill so she wouldn't have come to town for the show anyway. So I guess better to have the disappointment early.
However, yesterday I was talking to a professional colleague about something else entirely and he mentioned he knew someone who, due to illness in their group, was looking to sell a Cohen ticket for face value. So I called, and I got the ticket.
The show was at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium, kind of a little jewel in terms of sound quality and sight lines. I've had some good times there. It was not, however, nearly as great in terms of seats, which means today I am a bit gimped up again.
I'll live.
The show started pretty much on the dot of eight, and the first standing ovation of the night occurred at about 8:01, when Cohen walked onstage in a dapper suit and fedora, looking like a cross between a Buddhist monk and Michael Corleone. He was warm and gracious, much like Kris Kristofferson when I saw him, and he seemed quite touched by the nearly-ecstatic reception he and his songs received. The nine-piece band was a terrific unit and Cohen introduced each member repeatedly, pointing them out by name as they finished solos, so that by the end of the evening we were beginning to know them by name. There was a definite feeling of a real band playing together, although Cohen was the obvious, effortless focus of attention.
As the woman I got the ticket from remarked, I hope I am half that cool when I am Cohen's age. He's always been more of a vocal stylist than a singer, but in fact the older he gets the more texture his voice has. It's deep and raspy and he's sometimes hard to understand when he speaks because some words hover at the bottom of my hearing range, but it is a captivating and strangely beautiful sound. The audience had the habit of reacting to specific lyrics as if they were addressed straight to us, and Cohen took that up a little so some songs had the quality of soliloquies in Shakespeare, as he stepped into the footlights as if only we could hear him.
I scribbled down the setlist in the back of a notebook and was surprised at how many of the songs I knew. Some were rearranged or given new introductions but the majority of the audience was harder to fool than me and twigged immediately to most. There was almost no singing along. The woman behind me actually squeaked with delight when he began "So Long Marianne." I think I teared up over "Suzanne," and I have no idea why.
Just a wonderful show. I'm so grateful I lucked into that ticket!
Set List
Set #1
Set #2