This morning I went back to Bloomingdales to change a few items from the sale…and to add a few others while Peter was refereeing a rugby game on Long Island. The shopping was good, but the Leonard Cohen concert that evening was spectacular. I had heard of Leonard Cohen and thought his music was ok but nothing special, so I was more interested to attend the concert as a chance to see the inside of the Radio City Music Hall … I didn’t think too much about the music.
But when we arrived and I saw the massive queues waiting to get into the Hall I began to get the idea that this night was maybe going to be something very special And was it ever … when he first walked onstage that night, Cohen said, "I don't know when we will meet again friends, but tonight we will give you all we've got." He was certainly true to his word. He and his band put on an epic show! Afterwards Peter and I both agreed that attending this concert was one of the greatest performance experiences of our lives.
Of course, we had been hearing about his legendary concerts since 2008 when he began a series of world tours, which have continued to this day, selling out the world's greatest venues, often within hours of tickets going on sale. And of all the older rockers and musicians still on the scene, Cohen commands some of the largest numbers of young people flocking to hear him and his extraordinary band. Not bad for a guy pushing 80. What is it that makes a Leonard Cohen concert different from almost any other night on the town? As Angelica Houston once said of him, he is "part wolf, part angel." And that spectrum, which pings in most of us as well, is obvious in his music, his lyrics, and his onstage presence. He lets the wild have its day -- the passions and the darkness, the vagaries of love, loss, and death -- and at the same time, there is tenderness and generosity in his views. In just one or two lines of poetry or lyrics, he sums up a lifetime's vague murmurings of the heart.
Surrounded by world class musicians, some of whom he has worked with for over 40 years and most of whom are legends in their own right, Cohen paid homage to each several times throughout the evening and gives ample time for their solo performances. This alone is worth the price of the ticket. But finally, it was the experience of the audience that revealed the talent of those onstage. In this case, the concert-goers of New York would simply not let Leonard Cohen leave. Before the final song ended, the entire sold-out crowd of over 6,000 was on its feet, clapping in unison, yelps and whistles piercing the air. Three encores later -- at midnight -- it was at last closing time, and we left that great venue with flushed, radiant faces -- a flash mob of exalted strangers. It is heartening to know that in this time of spectacle and trivia, of celebrity voyeurism and gangsta rap, there are still plenty of those who are moved by what can only be described as a class act.
There were so many great songs sung that night (the full set list is below) but my two favourites were the hauntingly beautiful ‘Alexandra Leaving’ and the incredibly deep and meaningful ‘A Thousand Kisses Deep’. ‘Alexandra Leaving’ is, at one level anyway, a simple story of lost love. But ‘A Thousand Kisses Deep’ is much more complex.
It is a song about loving another person and feeling that you know them really, really well, but still, somehow not being able to bridge the void that separates each of your realities. It is a song that summaries quite well that feeling that everything in life is temporary and insubstantial and that, although you have to live your life as though it were all real, the fundamental reality of our existence is something far beyond our human understanding.
Set 1 -
Dance Me to the End of Love/The Future/Bird on a Wire/Everybody Knows/Who By Fire/Darkness/There Ain’t No Cure for Love/Amen/Come Healing/First We Take Manhattan/A Thousand Kisses Deep/Anthem
Intermission
Set 2 - Tower of Song/Suzanne/Heart With No Companion/Waiting for the Miracle/Show Me the Place/Anyhow/Lover Lover Lover/Alexandra Leaving (sung by Sharon Robinson)/I’m Your Man/Hallelujah/Take This Waltz
1st Encore - So Long, Marianne/Going Home/Closing Time
2nd Encore - Famous Blue Raincoat/If It Be Your Will (sung by the Webb Sisters)/Save the Last Dance for Me
3rd Encore - I Tried to Leave You
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