Tour Reviews and Other Memories from
LEONARD COHEN WORLD TOUR Winter 2009
Melbourne, Australia
Set List - February 5, 2009
First Set
Dance Me To The End Of Love
The Future
Ain't No Cure For Love
Bird On The Wire
Everybody Knows
In My Secret Life
Who By Fire
Chelsea Hotel
Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye
Sisters Of Mercy
Anthem
Second Set
Tower Of Song
Suzanne
Gypsy Wife
The Partisan
Boogie Street
Hallelujah
I'm Your Man
A Thousand Kisses Deep (recitation)
Take This Waltz
Encores
So Long, Marianne
First We Take Manhattan
Famous Blue Raincoat
If It Be Your Will
Democracy
I Tried to Leave You
Whither Thou Goest
Melbourne, Australia
Legend Cohen returns in style
The Age
- February 6, 2009 by Andrew Murfett
LEGENDARY Canadian vocalist, songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen made his long-awaited Melbourne return with a lengthy, sold-out set at Rod Laver Arena.
The show, surprisingly one of summer's blockbuster music events, is part of his first Australian tour in two decades. The 11,000-strong crowd lapped up the elongated performance.
The 74-year-old has inspired artists such as Jeff Buckley, Nick Cave, Bono and Bob Dylan.
He was lured out of 15 years of retirement from touring last year after he was rendered almost penniless thanks to the alleged financial plundering of former manager Kelley Lynch.
Promoters spent two years persuading him to go back on the road.
On stage, the dapper Cohen retains a relatively nimble and energetic presence. The set list takes in classics such as Chelsea Hotel, Suzanne, Bird on a Wire, I'm Your Man, First We Take Manhattan and the much-covered song he reclaims as his own, Hallelujah.
He joked frequently through the show about his age and agility.
His long-time band was given plenty of opportunity to shine, particularly Dino Soldo, who switched between saxophone and a range of wind instruments.
Cohen returns to Melbourne next week, on Tuesday, for a second show at Rod Laver Arena.
Melbourne, Australia
Oh, the power of song
Herald Sun (Australia)
- February 6, 2009 by Cameron Adams (Photo: Gary Richardson)
Thanks to crimpies for posting on The Leonard Cohen Forum.
Melbourne, Australia
Blogs, Photos and Other Fan Reports
Blog - "Life, what is it?" - "I'm in love with a new voice that is 74 years old......."
I have never seen so much joy, clapping, standing ovations in my life at a concert. Amazing...
Blog - The Buck Stops 'ere - "Everybody knows that it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth..."
He was sweet, endearing, carefully spoken and a consummate performer. I’ve never seen a show quite like it...
 Some lovely photos by garlandsofflowers
Discuss the tour and read fan reviews on The Leonard Cohen Forum and in French on the Leonard Cohen Forum (French site).
Swan Valley
Leonard Cohen concert a lesson in cool
Perth Now
- February 7, 2009 by Polly Coufos
LEONARD Cohen is 74 years old and still skips on and off the stage.
Cohen’s still filled with an enviable boyish energy and the childlike entrances and exits suggests he’s still loving life.
But after more than 40 years as the butt of jokes about creating music to slit your wrists to, he still has the ability to show the difference between Leonard Cohen the writer and Leonard Cohen the performer.
His songs, at least the most famous of them from the ’60s, may have been the perfect companions for generations of miserable teenagers, music that we typically listen to in solitude. But Cohen’s genius is in making them songs to be shared communally. He’s halfway there with his unforgettable melodies, but it’s his delivery that declares him such a captivating performer.
In his first trip to Perth in nearly 24 years, Cohen pulled a line from Chelsea Hotel #2 - about a tryst with Janis Joplin while he was enjoying the first flush of pop stardom. It was about how she said she preferred handsome men, “but for me you would make an exception” and delivered it slow and measured like it was a punchline in the world’s funniest joke.
The response from the capacity crowd at Sandalford suggested that at that moment it just might have been. Similarly, when he described being born with a golden voice in Tower Of Song he emphasised the phrase to offer his vocal limitations as the source of a laughter.
It’s true Cohen would have surely starved had he tried to make a living as an interpreter of other people’s songs, but his voice has lost little of its presence over the years. With no range to speak of, Cohen practically speaks the words - but he does so with alluring command.
In a near three hour performance last night, he took back Hallelujah from Jeff Buckley, took back Bird on A Wire from Joe Cocker, took back Suzanne from Judy Collins and reclaimed First We Take Manhattan from Jennifer Warnes.
In short, he has given these songs to the world, but showed time and again has the power to take them back any time he chooses.
If his voice is a simple tool, the same can not be said for his band, who were so good Cohen introduced them twice. His frequent collaborator Sharon Robinson stood in a vocal trio with the Webb sisters (who turned a cartwheel in The Future) adding a classy sheen to the singing.
The musical arrangements found a sweet spot between the soul/gospel sound of Neil Larsen’s Hammond organ, the Gypsy guitar stylings of Javier Mas and the Nashville-influenced picking of Bob Metzger on Telecaster and pedal steel.
The immaculately turned out Cohen frequently knelt in front of his band. From the audience, it wasn’t clear if he was doing it for affect or to read a teleprompter, but it didn’t matter. It added rather than detracted from the performance.
Like everything Cohen did, it looked cool. Then again, if a septuagenarian can skip and look cool, everything else is a piece of cake.
Melbourne, Australia
Set List - February 10, 2009
First Set
Dance Me To The End Of Love
The Future
Ain't No Cure For Love
Bird On The Wire
Everybody Knows
In My Secret Life
Who By Fire
Chelsea Hotel
Sisters Of Mercy
Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye
Anthem
Second Set
Tower Of Song
Suzanne
Gypsy Wife
The Partisan
Boogie Street
Hallelujah
I'm Your Man
A Thousand Kisses Deep (recitation)
Take This Waltz
Encores
So Long, Marianne
First We Take Manhattan
Famous Blue Raincoat
If It Be Your Will
Democracy
I Tried to Leave You
Whither Thou Goest
Melbourne, Australia
When Leonard Cohen prays
Eureka Street
- February 13, 2009 by Tim Kroenert
I'm as sceptical of celebrity worship as the next person. But there is something to be said for being in the presence of the truly great — those who simply pulsate with genius and charisma.
Leonard Cohen is like that. You could sense it the moment he walked on stage on tuesday night. I could feel it, even from my distant seat.
The world of pop music is dominated by prettiness and skin-deep perfection. In that context, Cohen's greatness is not instantly discernible. When, in 'Tower of Song', he sings 'I was born with the gift of a golden voice', it would seem he doesn't mean the smooth glint of a wedding band, or the finely chiseled features of an ornate bracelet. He means nuggets, heavy and pliable, and dirty with the earth from which they've been plucked.
Not to everyone's taste. But the sound has served him well, and has the advantage of improving with the wear and weather of age. Cohen is 75, and those deep notes in 'I'm Your Man' still cause a delectable tremor in the guts.
The growl becomes him. Lurking in the all-around shadow of his trademark, narrow-brimmed hat, Cohen can still croon credibly about love, sex and beautiful women, without a trace of ick or sleaze. (He grinned evilly at the suggestive exhortations of one female audience member.)
His sense of humour is a trademark. Lately a Buddhist, Cohen explained how his latter years had been spent in 'deep study' of religion and philosophy. 'But cheerfulness keeps breaking through', he quipped.
The humour augments natural gravitas. On tuesday, he first prayed, and then sang, the lyric of his song 'Anthem' as a tribute to bushfire victims:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
(Cohen, supporting artist Paul Kelly and tour promoter Frontier Touring donated $200,000 to support the bushfire victims.)
It was a night of hits and plenty of fan favourites. During nearly three hours of stage time Cohen drew from the breadth of his catalogue, old and new(er), with equal aplomb.
From his first album, the gospel lyric of 'Suzanne' fractured with the intensity of Cohen's rendition:
Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower ...
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
Six of eight tracks from (arguably) Cohen's best album, I'm Your Man, made the set list. He sang two of these during his encore, with the sublimely dark 'Take This Waltz' ('With its very own breath/Of brandy and death') a highlight of the night.
Cohen is often described as a poet as much as a singer. 'A Thousand Kisses Deep' ('And sometimes when the night is slow/The wretched and the meek/We gather up our hearts and go') was transformed into a spoken ode, to skin-tingling effect. Conversely, Cohen's most famous song, 'Hallelujah' (an ethereal ode to the orgasm: 'Remember when I moved in you/The holy dove was moving too') was a bit off, though predictably well-received.
Strangely, given Cohen's clearly impeccable memory for his lyrics, he displayed what appeared to be an occasional 'senior's moment'. Prior to intermission, he thanked his virtuosic band (among them three backing vocalists, a saxophonist and a transcendentally dexterous mandolin player), assigning each member a poetic, adulatory spiel. Prior his encore, to awkward applause from the audience, he repeated the process, word for word.
Still, the guy's human, and no-one could begrudge him the occasional lapse, be it age-related, or due to the repetitive nature of a world concert tour. It certainly didn't prevent the crowd from offering a string of decreasingly spontaneous standing ovations as, during the encore, Cohen skipped (yes, skipped) from the stage after every song, returning one more time for 'one more time'.
A final note. 'Hallelujah' is not only Cohen's most famous song, but also his most frequently covered song. Indeed, Cohen's version is rarely heard by comparison with the late Jeff Buckley's intensely beautiful and ubiquitous take on the song.
So it's interesting that one of tuesday night's most sublime moments happened when Cohen stepped away from the microphone, to allow two of his backing vocalists 'unfold' the musical prayer, 'If it be your will'.
The 'Webb sisters' — one with a liquid-crystal soprano, the other a contralto with a voice like warm timber — seemed to shock the audience into silence with the beauty of their rendition:
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing.
Such is the nature of greatness. Cohen's genius is not restricted to the body that presided on tuesday night. As with any great artist, his greatness is defined by what he leaves behind for others to carry or to be inspired or enlightened by.
To paraphrase 'Tower of Song', we'll be hearing from him long after he's gone: 'I'll be speaking to you sweetly/From a window in the Tower of Song.'
Melbourne, Australia
Leonard Cohen donates £90,000 to Australian bushfire victims
guardian.co.uk
- February 10, 2009 by Rosie Swash (Photo: Domenech Castello/EPA)
The legendary singer-songwriter has found it in his heart (and his pocket) to give generously to those who have suffered the loss of loved ones or their homes in the fire disaster
Leonard Cohen might have had a few cash problems in recent years, but the legendary singer-songwriter has still dug deep enough to donate $200,000 (£90,000) to the victims of the Australian bushfires.
Cohen is currently touring the country where bushfires have destroyed entire towns in the state of Victoria, killing an estimated 200 people. Australian tour promoter Michael Gudinski released a statement saying: "Leonard has loved his time in Australia on this tour and is shocked and deeply saddened by the news of the fires." He added that Cohen and his touring party "wish to extend their heartfelt sympathies to those that have suffered the loss of loved ones or their homes through this terrible tragedy".
Authorities are still battling fires that continue to blaze across the south east of Australia, in what the country's prime minister Kevin Rudd described as "a horror few of us anticipated".
The 74-year-old singer returned to the stage last year after a 15-year hiatus to widespread acclaim. However, Cohen has commented that his decision to return to live performing was prompted by his retirement fund having allegedly been pilfered to the tune of $5m (approximately £3.4m) by his former manager Kelley Lynch. Despite the fact he may never reclaim his fortune, Cohen has still found it in his heart (and his pocket) to give generously to the victims of the Australian bushfires.
Cohen plays his last show in the country at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne tonight, where a charity bucket for the bushfire victims will be passed around.
Melbourne, Australia
Blogs and Other Fan Reports
Blog - Cat Politics - "Leonard Cohen at Rod Laver Arena – A Night of Tasteful Music and Beautiful Vibes"
I cannot really add to the accolades already accorded the remarkable Leonard Cohen during his tour of the Antipodes, other than to say that everything written previously is true and correct...
Discuss the tour and read fan reviews on The Leonard Cohen Forum and in French on the Leonard Cohen Forum (French site).
Speaking Cohen Home
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