Leonard Cohen's perfect gig at the O2 - Best Live Song Performance Contender
Posted by kgb on 18 July 2008 - 12:11am.
Just got back from the O2 seeing Leonard Cohen performing a fantastic show. Top rate musicians, a great set list covering all his best songs in what is becoming a very good venue - the acoustics are better than anywhere else in London.
Best of all was his rendering of Hallelujah which to my overexcited ears was the best live performance I have ever heard in around 40 years of going to gigs.
Very moving concert. Leonard's voice in great shape. Jokes, irony, poetry, jigging - absolutely first class.
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"Perfect gig at the O2" - a contradiction in terms?
I don't wish to be a crusty old cultural curmudgeon - why wish when I already am one? - but how perfect a gig-going experience can it be to watch Leonard Cohen on a video wall? Were there smoke bombs and lasers too?
Leonard Cohen is the type of act who shouldn't be playing anywhere bigger than a 2,000-seater hall. So it sells out in seconds and most fans can't go? All the better for the mystique. Most people can't get tickets for Bayreuth in their lifetimes, either, but as far as I know there are no plans to replace the intimacy of the Festspielhaus with building-sized stacks of Marshall amps at the Olympic Stadium in Munich.
I'm glad you enjoyed it, but really. "Perfect"?
Perfect? - Not far off!
"A very good venue"? Well, maybe not, although agreed, the acoustics were excellent and much better than at similar vast arenas. My one doubt about going to this gig (well, a second doubt if you include the kidney-selling price of the ticket) had been whether he would be able to 'fill' such a place. And for the first few songs as I stared off into the distance at the little figure on stage, or felt obliged to glance up at - yes - the video wall, I wasn't sure if it was going to work. But by god did it work.
For him to be able to hold 20,000 people in rapt near-silence reciting 'a thousand kisses deep' as a poem, is testament to how powerful a performance it was. I don't think I've ever been made to feel such a range of emotions at a gig and three hours passed in the blink of an eye, even watching from crap seats in the gods. I am obviously a Leonard Cohen fan, but not one - I hope - prone to unjustified superlatives, or blind praise. Even if I do still mildly resent having helped fill the corporate coffers to go and see it, this remains one of, if not the best gig I have ever been to.
Perfect? Well is anything ever perfect? And as the man himself would put it:
"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."
Quite simply stunning.
I'm glad
That doesn't alter my main point: that his manager should book him into more appropriate venues, rather than every rake-it-in hangar and six-figure-crowd festival that he's offered (he's doing Benicassim this weekend).
Surely he can't be doing this because he needs the money - he could probably retire tomorrow on his royalties from "Hallelujah" alone. And the "give as many people as possible a chance to see him" argument won't wash, either. If that was important to him, wouldn't he have toured more intensively and regularly?
Just imagine if the performance you saw last night had been at, say, the Apollo.
Sounds great
But he's not a proper singer is he? ;)
New Dates Added
Just spotted that Laughing Len is back at the O2 on November 13th. Tickets released today. Top price already gone but i've just got myself a floor seating ticket for £60 (plus all the usual booking fee cobblers).
I am "that sad" that I am actualy going on my own (there's absolutely no one i know who would go with me). GLW just doesn't get it. (Its funny. She's like that about my Ukulele too)
Martin
Archie - Leonard and the money
Surely he doesnt need the money?
Have you read about him losing all his money - every penny - when he was in his Buddhist retreat and he left his PA with a power of attorney over his financial affairs? She also sold forward his royalties so no he cant live off Hallelujah.
I doubt he would be on tour - the only way he can actually get any money - if it werent for that mistake.
So dont blame him for not playing at your local pub.
The o2 is a good venue - much better than outdoors. And there are many people who want to see him and at 73 you cant expect him to play 10 nights at the Hammersmith Apollo.
I've read about it now
It turns out he'd signed over a shell company to his manager as a tax dodge (see New York Times, 6 October 2005). And "every penny" isn't quite right. For one, even after the alleged embezzlement, he was left with "only" $150,000 in cash, plus a house in Montreal and a duplex in L.A. for his retirement. And, for two, the royalties sell-off was a $13M deal. His manager is only accused of helping herself to $5M of that - presumably the other $8 million is guaranteed future income.
Poor baby.
The Big Decision
£60 for his jovialness at the NEC, or £67 at the Big Chill ?
More difficult than you'd think.
Last time I saw him was as I waited in the bus queue at the Isle Of Wight - I actually nipped back so I could see the stage, so I could mentally tick him off.
So the chance to see him in that same festival vibe is strong, as against the 'comforts' of the NEC, where the line for the gents will be long amongst his low flow fans.
laughing len /jovialism etc
Actually Len is a very funny man has nobody on here listened to the "Im your Man" album?? He is without doubt a very fuuny man, check it out Maaaaan! Its a real rib ticker. Its not all Suzanne you know.
Glastonbury
Leonard Cohen performing Hallelujah at Glastonbury this year was probably my (musical)highlight of the whole weekend. His entire set was magnificent! I normally feel a bit down on a festival Sunday, the feeling of the clock on our backs, but that day was superb.