Hallelujah! Cohen’s Back on Tour

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Author: Michael Darling

If there is one man who can challenge Bob Dylan and quite possibly best him for the title of rock music’s poet laureate, it is Leonard Cohen. By some reports, Cohen is the most covered songwriter in rock music. Also, much like Dylan, Cohen does not have a traditional “singer’s” voice. His is a dark, deep and raspy voice that makes you believe it could be that of God. Particularly when he sings in “The Future” that he’s “the little Jew who wrote the Bible,” .

Earlier this year, Cohen announced his first tour in fourteen years. After seeing Cohen perform last Friday night at the Nokia Theater, I can report that he seems to be having a lot of fun being back on stage.

As soon as the lights dimmed, the band walked on stage, followed closely by Cohen, who came running out looking pretty spry for a 74-year-old. The troop of musicians then opened the show with “Dance Me to the End of Love” from Cohen’s Various Positions album. This song, with its Eastern European influences, set the tone for the rest of the concert. Cohen, his six man band, and three female backing singers, played like a band of Gypsies, mixing all sorts of musical influences over three hours and 28 songs. The band played a stylistic mélange ranging from the soulful “In My Secret Life,” to the country swing of “Closing Time,” and the minimalist folk of “Suzanne.”

Throughout the night Cohen walked the line between dread and hope. His second number was the dystopian “The Future” and he later played the pessimistic “Everybody Knows.” Towards the end of the first half, Cohen said that the present economic crisis was “worse than Y2K,” which he jokingly remembered was pretty bad. However, he reminded the audience that “there’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in,” before performing a triumphant rendition of “Anthem.” As religion is a common theme in Cohen’s works, he also briefly spoke of how he has studied many faiths and philosophies. This included a five year period in which he was a Buddhist monk at the Mount Baldy Zen Centre during the late 1990s. He added that despite all this religious study, “cheerfulness kept breaking through.”

Love and longing are also frequent topics of Cohen’s work. At this concert, Cohen longed to see his lover naked in her body and her thoughts in “There Ain’t No Cure For Love” and wrote a letter to the man his lover’s been cheating with in the chilling “Famous Blue Rain Coat.” Additionally, Cohen performed the sweet and sleazy “I’m Your Man” and one of my favorite songs, “Chelsea Hotel No. 2,” a song inspired by an affair with Janis Joplin. Of course, Cohen sang one of his most famous songs of love and heartbreak, “Hallelujah.”

Cohen also threw a few curveballs at the audience and allowed his band to show off their skills. Cohen took a break from singing to recite the lyrics to “A Thousand Kisses Deep” as pure poetry, much to audience delight. He did the same with the first verse of “If It Be Your Will” before letting backing singers, The Webb Sisters, sing the rest of his hymn on their own. The other backing singer, Sharon Robinson, has co-written songs with Cohen and performed their funky collaboration, “Boogie Street.” Guitarist Javier Mas performed a flamenco introduction to “Who By Fire,” and the whole band got solos during the downbeat jazz take on “I Tried to Leave You.” The evening ended with Cohen thanking the audience and all those who helped make the show possible, before the entire band joined him on vocals for his choral number, “Whither Thou Goest.”

In the end, Cohen and his band put on a fantastic show with many musical turns. If you are going to see him perform at Coachella on Friday night, you are in for a treat.

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