Leonard Cohen in Dortmund on Sept 29, 2010

[lotus]

As many of you I know Leonard Cohen from my youth on. The last and only gig I saw was in 73 or 74 in Barcelona in the famous concert Hall Palau de la Musica. It was a memorable gig, as it was the first time he could sing in Spain. In that time we were living still under the dictatorship of Franco (it was getting to its end) and so anything Leonard sung which was related to freedom (Bird on a wire etc) let always to big applauses etc in the audience.

The gig today took place in the Westfalenhalle, an old sports Arena in which an audience of aprox 7-8000 people can attend (here I saw back in 82 The Wall from PF). The place was sold out.

The stage was just decorated with some curtains, which were illuminated in different colors, no show at all. He begun 15 min late and he mixed perfectly very old known songs with some newer ones. The first part was about 90 min, 20 min brake and second part about 80 min including the encores. LC played all the old hits. Although the songs do not have the variety of sounds, rhythms that we know and like from prog, I enjoyed it so much, having chicken skin at many moments.

Leonard voice has not the freshness like 40 years ago, it is rather deep and he sings many tunes one octave deeper. But the magic of his voice is still there and filled the hall. He let room to the musicians which were on stage with him so that it was not the personal LC show but the LC music show. All the musician playing with him were masters on their respective instruments:
Webb sisters (backing vocals)
Roscoe Beck (bass, vocals)
Neil Larsen (keyboards & Hammond B3 accordion)
Bob Metzger (electric, acoustic & pedal steel guitar)
Javier Mas (bandurria, laud, archilaud, 12 string acoustic guitar)
Rafael Gayol (drums, percussion)
Dino Soldo (sax, clarinet dobro - keys).

Conclusion, I wish to be as young at the age of 76 as LC is today, being able to perform a nearly 3 hours gig with 25+ tunes, not forgetting a line of the lyrics, with a voice that stands still the end, and leaving dancing the stage after the gig..

It was a great evening..

Glad you enjoyed it lotus.

I still play "Songs of Leonard Cohen" album and love it to this day.

Thanks for sharing.