Leonard Cohen at the Arts Centre...

[fajrdrako]

Now that I've had some sleep... a bit more about Leonard Cohen. auriaephiala sent me a link to this interesting article about him. Besides enthusing over how wonderful the concert was... and it was amazing... I have a few things to say:

• I love hearing a singer for whom the words are important. And as auriaephiala pointed out, the words are always simple. It's what he does with them that matters, and the ideas behind them.
  
• I loved Sharon Robinson and the Webb sisters. Beautiful singers. The cartwheels were a nice touch.
  
• Cohen thanked the technicians. Good for him!
  
• The lighting was amazing, too. Not fancy. Just... kind of perfect.
  
• While waiting for auriaephiala in the lobby of the National Arts Centre, I was enjoying watching the crowd. A woman beside me said to her friend, "The people here, they look like people with character. The people who've followed him over the years, they have individual style." And it was true. I was impressed how there were people of all ages there.
  
• The gentleman sitting two seats over from me had seen this concert twice already, in different cities, and had driven here from Vermont to see it again. He'd never been to Ontario before. He was amused that Ottawa is now so sprawling that he'd seen the signs on the highway announcing arrival in Ottawa way back, but then was driving for half an hour with no sign of a city, thinking, "Shouldn't there be a major capital city coming up?"
  
• Though he is now 73 years old, Cohen's performance is remarkably physical. He started off many of the songs kneeling, but did a fair amount of dancing, too, and he got skippier as the performance went on and the audience was responsive.
  
• I had been really hoping he'd sing "Hallelujah". And he did.
  
• Never thought I'd get to see him in person.
  
  

Comments

for my information: the Citizen review of the Leonard Cohen concert

[fajrdrako]

One brilliant song after another
Poet-songwriter Cohen at the centre of an NAC love-in
By Chris Cobb, The Ottawa CitizenMay 27, 2009

Hats off to Leonard Cohen.

Which would be a rather lame introduction if the Cohen concert wasn't such a hat thing.

Hats are the props -- a simple but clever device that Cohen uses to emphasize the slightly old fashioned gentleman crooner that he has fashioned himself into.

He doffs his hat often to pay individual tributes to his musicians and singers -- as well he might -- and to his audience who, at the NAC Monday night, were too busy showering him with love to notice.

But it takes more than hats to rocket an aging musical poet to the dizzying career heights he is currently enjoying. He's hotter now than he's ever been.

There has to be a reason why

Cohen has left a legacy of breathless reviews and near unanimous adulation across the planet during his travels this past year or more.

Yet it's a puzzle to many why Canada's most famous ladies man has suddenly become one of the most sought-out acts on the concert circuit and can sell T-shirts for $45 and other paraphernalia for similarly inflated, rock 'n' roll prices.

There has been no new hot disc to shoot him up the charts and if you discount the ubiquitous Hallelujah performed by others, he has never had a mega-hit to speak of.

Sure, the stars of fame and celebrity often align in mysterious ways

but after witnessing Cohen and his fabulous band perform for three hours, the answer becomes stunningly obvious.

It's the songs, dummy.

He runs onto the stage in defiance of his 74 years and launches into Dance Me to the End of Love. From that point its one beautifully crafted song after another.

To the Cohen aficionado, they are all familiar: Who Shall I Say is Calling?, Bird on a Wire, Famous Blue Raincoat, Suzanne, Sisters of Mercy, Tower of Song Marianne, Take this Waltz and Chelsea Hotel, his ode to Janis Joplin. And many more.

Cohen's singing voice, never up to much in a conventional sense, has grown deeper and gruffer. But he has always been smart in his hiring of the finest female singing talent to complement his unique vocal styling.

Longtime collaborator Sharon Robinson and the Webb Sisters are his singing "angels" -- his word -- on this tour, his first in this neck of the woods for almost 20 years.

The songs are the substance but the style his musicians give them are why these concerts have brought Cohen such great acclaim.

The band Cohen clearly admires is Roscoe Beck (bass, vocals), Neil Larsen (keyboards and accordion), Bob Metzger (electric, acoustic and pedal steel guitar), Javier Mas (bandurria, laud, archilaud, 12-string acoustic guitar), Rafael Gayol (drums, percussion) and Dino Soldo (sax, clarinet, dobro, keyboards).

Cohen doesn't take himself totally seriously. He's obviously having fun onstage and while he makes the odd crack about his age, thankfully he doesn't dwell on the subject.

The show has a few surprises but not a great deal of spontaneity and except for a wry comment or two, the minimum of banter from Cohen.

After many months on the road, it's well-honed, precise and entirely delightful. Ask the Monday night audience.

Then again, when the people give a performer a standing ovation just for walking onstage, the battle for their hearts and minds is already won.

It's a privileged position for any artist to occupy and one that Leonard Cohen deserves more than most.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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The master of seduction
Leonard Cohen's songs of the spirit and flesh gain new meaning in a magnificent performance
By DENIS ARMSTRONG
Last Updated: 26th May 2009, 2:10am

Leonard Cohen skipped onto the Southam Hall stage, knelt on one knee as if proposing marriage and sang Dance Me to the End of Love.

Not only was it a surprisingly spry move on the part of the 74-year-old poet, singer and former Buddhist monk, but it was also a fitting indication of what was to come in the first of two concerts at the National Arts Centre's Southam Hall last night.

Few songwriters have captured spiritual yearning and fired the erotic imagination like Cohen.

But now, as the senior high priest of love songs showed a remarkable durability as a charismatic interpreter of his own songs of the flesh and of the spirit, it's clear that his poetic reach has only intensified with age.

Wearing a chic black suit and fedora and ably backed by the soft jazz ensemble of Javier Mas on bandurria and laud, Dino Soldo on winds, guitarist Bob Metzer, Raphael Bernardo Diode on drums, Neil Larson on keyboards, bassist Roscoe Beck and three singers, it was apparent that Cohen is relishing the opportunity to perform again.

It wasn't supposed to be this good. Cohen only reluctantly agreed to do concerts after being defrauded out of $5 million, leaving him nearly bankrupt.

But instead of relying on the goodwill of his fans, Cohen delved deep into the music, performing with the energy and surprisingly potent musical imagination that often illuminated even familiar songs such as Who By Fire with new and sometimes disturbing meanings.

Here was Cohen the elder, no longer the singer of earnest love songs, but the wise old man fondly remembering the romance of youth.

With a voice like granite and dramatic timing, it didn't take Cohen long to seduce an already enraptured audience, singing the cautionary tale of The Future and the warm R&B There Ain't No Cure for Love. There was a hint of the younger Cohen in his plaintive vocal prime on Bird on a Wire, declaiming Everybody Knows, the sermon of My Secret Life, and inspired versions of Who By Fire and Chelsea Hotel #2 that sounded sweeter with time.

He barely spoke throughout the set, other than to thank the fans for coming, and joking about getting old.

Cohen was less introspective in the second half, which he began at the keyboard to play Tower of Song, Suzanne, and included Hallelujah.

Cohen's concert turned out to be much more than a night of fond nostalgia. It was an epic performance by a skilled poet.

Leonard Cohen performs again tonight at the NAC at 8 p.m.

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LEONARD COHEN

The National Arts Centre

Sun Rating: 5 out of 5