Archives for July 17, 2008

A good few decades younger than the star of the show - the one and only Leonard Cohen.

Like most fans, I snapped up tickets without considering the venue - simple seeing him perform live is a rarity these days. He hasn't toured for 15 years so there was enormous pressure on this concert to be something really special.

And for all that it lacked intimacy - shared with 10,000 others, some of whom were still climbing the tattoo stand terraces to their seats as the concert began - it was actually a note perfect gig.

Close your eyes and you could have been in some dingy Berlin club (the suits and fedoras, mandolin and clarinet simply add to the image); open them and you have the glorious sight of the castle, with the sun setting in the distance over the Firth of Forth.

Seventy three he may be, and openly on tour because his pension fund has been dipped and he needs to replenish it, but it was one heck of a show and his voice as strong and as distinctive as on any of his array of albums.

The guy next to me was a teenager - but clearly knew the entire back catalogue of Cohen classics.

Every time the band struck up the chords of the first song, he'd turn to us with a great beaming grin of recognition. And in a two and a half hour concert - none of us were disappointed.

He begins with Dance Me To The End of Love - a wonderful 30s style rendition - which has latecomers sashaying into their seats.

You've got to admire an elegant septugenarian who says he'll be onstage at eight sharp - and keeps his date!

Then Everybody Knows, Bird on the Wire and That's No Way to Say Goodbye - the songs come thick and fast.

It works best in big band style, less so with some of the overwrought jazz arrangements but it's never dull.

He flirts with the audience in I'm Your Man - his ladies' man reputation clinging hard, despite his age, and leaves barely a dry eye in the house with his emotionally rending anthem Hallelujah.

People have always been divided about the voice - perhaps even lower with age? - but there's no disputing Cohen's abilities as a songwriter.

And often, it's other singers' renditions of his songs which have brought him to a new audience - Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah, Arran Neville's version of Ain't No Cure For Love, not to mention a whole album full of tributes from U2 to the Chieftains on Tower of Song.

Tower of Song opened the second act - after a polite pit stop for all - a humorous self deprecating lyric about the pecking order of songwriters.

There's lots of humour in the show - one in the eye for anyone who thinks Gloomy Len only does mean and moody.

He even skips off at the end - Morecambe and Wise style - only to re-emerge for three encores.

First We Take Manhattan, Sisters of Mercy and finally, and rather aptly Closing Time.

As the mist of rain starts to descend on the audience, Cohen squints into the darkness. "Is it raining? You need to all go home now. Thank you for coming but I don't want anyone catching a cold."

And warm and fuzzy inside, we all do as we're told and head for home.