Entertainment For Lively Minds
I feel churlish but......
I feel I need to get this off my chest. First, let me start by saying, again, that Leonard Cohen live at the NIA last year was one of my lifetime live highs, right across the board from the sound quality, the performance, the musicianship, the choice of songs, hell, the mere fact he was there. So why then is it that I am so underwhelmed by the Live in London CD, a facsimile show? Having listened to this at some depth over the w/e, I am wishing I hadn't, it somehow tainting my memory. It demonstrated for sure the highs of the evening, principally the magisterial brilliance of the band and the wonderful speaking voice of this statesman of living legends. However, sadly and surprisingly, it also reminded of the narrowness of his range and how the recorded versions of many of the songs were actually better, more often also too those versions recorded by others. At times, Sisters of Mercy and In my Secret Life for instance, it worked magnificently, but at other times, Closing Time and, ironically, Hallelujah, I found myself thinking of other singers. This happened not at the time, as I was entranced by the whole package, startstruck in awe by the experience. And I was reminded of a recent posting wherein the i-pod was compared, unfavourably, with the human memory, which has a more limitless ability to evoke emotion, somehow more forgiving than the harsh realities of proof. Is this the curse of the live memento, to endlessly disappoint the rose tinting of time, starkly playing out the lines otherwise lost to soft focus? I have a number of live recordings relating to shows I have been to, like Dylan at Blackbushe and Costello at Glastonbury, putting down the contrast between my enormous enjoyment of the shows and my disappointment in the indelible reality to the poverty of the sound quality, both being boots. However I now wonder, as no such excuse can here be offered, the quality of the recording of Cohen mirroring explicitly the sound at the arena. Too much so, maybe.
I wish I had just kept it all in my mind.....
On the bright side, it did remind me of how impressed I was with Sharon Robinson singing of Boogie Street; I recall a statement being made as to the future appearance of an LP of her singing Cohen (and Cohen/Robinson, to be fair) songs. When?
O, and final bleat: "Give me crack and careless sex"? Surrepticious change of lyric there, Len? Not thinking of sales, were we?
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Yes
It's like reading a book, then watching the film of the book, and trying to remember how you originally saw the story in your head, before it starred Ben Affleck and Meg Ryan.
Stand in a big crowd, have a couple of pints and put some bright lights on, then listen to the recording. See if that works.
Careless/anal sex
Seem to remember he changed the line on Later with Jools Holland in 1993.
Live!
There are very few live recordings that I own.
An 80s Mod band The Truth did a really good live album, but they were much much better live than they ever were in the studio.
Van's Too Late To Stop Now is a fave, but thinking about it, only for the extended version of Caravan. The rest, while good I could do without.
The others are visual recordings by various people, because when it comes to a live version of a song I like to watch the performance rather than listen.
Otherwise I think live should be live and experienced rather than be replayed.
Funnily enough one of my favourite
live albums is Cohen Live from 1994 (or thereabouts) which seems to have some kind of bite and edge to it. Live In London seems more like a little souvenir than anything else. As a biased northerner the title offends me (I went to the Edinburgh Castle gig) the cover looks perfunctory and the promotion zilch - I only found out it was being released by accident.
Still, what do I know? Another fave live album of mine is Dylan Live at Budokan but none of my Dylan-loving mates have any time for it at all.
off the top of my head
lou reed -rock n roll animal - for the intro to sweet jane alone
stones- ya yas- love in vain and the club side on love you live is up there too
hendrix/ otis -monterey - well the lot
who live at leeds - ditto
dylan - hard rain - shleter from the storm leaves the studio sedate version for dead
cocker- mad dogs
admittedly these are all vintage - cant recall too many excellent live albums of more recent times
Who - Live at Leeds
This is only a great live album as in the original vinyl form. The current expanded De Luxe version only succeeds in diluting the highlights. This release exemplifies the "less is more" theory.
Agreed, Carl...
...Curious that, isn't it? I can't quite put my finger on it, but the impact may also have something to do with the physical size of the 12" LP and the original mix (the loss of the backwards intro to Magic Bus on the remastered versions is a shame), as well as the diluting by added tracks...
There's possibly a niche market for a handful of 'classic albums' in non-expanded/keep it simple/slip-case/light-touch remastered form. Definitely 'Live At Leeds'. Ace records did something similar with a series of 'vanilla' 'back-pocket editions' of certain LPs last year.
Any other suggestions for this revolutionary less-is-more format, before we send a list to Sony/Universal?
Worth the cost of the download
LC Live From The Beacon Theatre for free at
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101034642
For that matter
The Cohen Live in London album is on Spotify, if anyone wants to have a listen before investing.
Some songs come over better than others
I agree with the two songs you mentioned as not hitting the spot. Closing Time and Hallelujah. Closing time missed the fiddle solo and interestingly was dropped from the set by the time I saw the show later in the year. Hallelujah has been done to death and I don't want to hear it again for an as yet unspecified period of time.
That said, I think some of the interpretations of the older numbers come accross pretty well.
The onstage band who were great on the night and were needed to fill the sound out in the arenas, possibly seem superfluous via the IPOD.
I bought the DVD of the concert (although i did cheat and transferd the audio to mp3).
All in all a nice momento of a great evening, but as they say, you had to be there.
I too was at the Birmingham gig
and like Retro firmly believed it was one of the best gigs I had ever seen. I bought the cd for my wife as she enjoyed the show so much and I have to concur that listening to it does not bring back either the immediacy or indeed the intimacy despite it being an Arena concert. However I am glad I have the cd particularly for the Webb Sisters unbelievable version of 'If it be your will'. This song is now so indelibly stamped on my brain that I am seriously thinking of requesting it be played at my funeral when I leave for pastures new.
They have an album too
http://open.spotify.com/track/2amcmGqd65M9M5Zzi3D8yG
And an e.p.
http://open.spotify.com/track/5sJtpbsZ3rtCKEunO5EIBZ
Frank Leboeuf
played in France's winning World Cup team in 1998. He has never watched a recording of the final because he always wants to remember it the way it is in his head, rather than what he saw on a screen later.
Seems a wise approach, although I'm not sure I could resist the temptation.