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Performer's Indifference
Matches His Audience's
By Alan J. Borsuk
An indifferent performer presented an indifferent show before an indifferent audience Friday night, and the result was no doubt the most passive Homecoming show in years.
The performer was poet-folksinger Leonard Cohen, a Canadian native who is better known for the songs he has written than for his performance of them.
He gave a crowd of about 2,000 some understanding of why that is so with his low-key lukewarm two hour show.
An outstanding performance by a folksinger or rock performer is often as much an emotional experience as it is a musical one, and little emotion was in the air Friday night in the Field House.
It wasn't just a matter of cool material that kept emotion down. Judy Collins played in much the same vein last spring in the same building, but succeeded in developing warm crowd emotions.
The problem boils down most likely to Cohen himself, who apparently finds the stage not his favorite place. His songs seem to be more poetic than musical and more private than public.
Most of the music, original except the opening number, had a more than vague similarity. Even the content was often similar, mostly having to do with women.
Which doesn't mean there weren't good songs and good performances in spots. Every now and then Cohen and the crowd came alive for a moment or two.
The closing two songs, "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye" and "Suzanne," two of his best known numbers, ended the show on a high note, with warmer audience responses.
The back up group of two female singers, three guitarists and a pianist was adequate but not outstanding. The singers had good voices but did little more than Mama Cass-style harmony.
As a Homecoming show, it didn't match up to the quality and excitement of many performances of the last few years.
Which may say something about the campus and about the audience, but also says something about Leonard Cohen.
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