Leonard Cohen gig last night - amazing!
I originally wrote this up to share with M., but thought it was worth posting.
Aaaahhhh, that was an amazing gig last night at the Rod Laver. It was really, really long, as well - it started at 7:15pm, and didn't finish until 11.30. A fantastic setlist, chock a block with classic numbers, and shining through it all, the fabulous persona of Cohen.
Detailed gig rundown
(...Who I finally realise is in some ways akin to Serge Gainsbourg - not just in the deep bass timbre of their voices, but in the intimacy of their songs, the strength and charisma of their personae as performers, and the adulation they inspire in their audiences. I don't know if anyone else has ever made the same comparison, it just came to me as I was listening).
Cohen appeared on stage looking frail and thin, but surprisingly nimble, and still with an amazingly powerful presence. His voice has lost its top register, but the weight of his life experience shows in the expressiveness of his phrasing and his self-deprecating humour, e.g. making reference to the last time he was on stage - ten or fifteen years ago - when he was "just a kid with a crazy dream", i.e. at age 65! So, there was much classic on-stage banter -- "For many years, I made a long study of philosophies and religions... [pause] ... but the cheerfulness kept breaking through" -- which the crowd lapped up. It was a mixed-age audience, but with a definite preponderance of over-30s, and a lot of people who were considerably older than that -- people, I suppose, who grew up with Cohen's music. This context -- singing as though in retrospect, looking back on a rich life -- gave his music a kind of wry humour and pathos that was very affecting.
Downsides ... ahhh, the weird sonic reverb/echo effect in the venue, which I guess is to do with the acoustic problems posed by large-scale structures with a metal frame/roof. I found the internal "echo" of sound hitting the back wall and sides and reverberating pretty disconcerting, although I suspect that a lot of people who go to stadium concerts are either less sensitive to it in the first place, or else are accustomed to hearing poor / highly reverberant acoustics in public places, and so ignore it. I guess the reverb would not be so noticeable at a louder / rock gig, but for more intimate and acoustic music it's pretty deadly. The venue management should install some kind of dampeners.
Second downside -- the clear and present danger of the "Bruce Springsteen" effect. It threatens to happen whenever a music legend is wheeled out in front of a set of uber-technically-competent session / pro musicians. The music is periodically interrupted or "embellished" with indulgent, theatrical solos from band members, intended to show us all how virtuosic they are at playing the mouth organ (or whatever). The total effect is that the songs threaten to drown in an overlay of inoffensive, yet cliched and soul-dulling "jazzy" jamming. It's like they've imported some of the performance rhetorics of jazz performance, but lost the groove in the process.
Well, I was VERY worried about this at the start of the gig, but generally, the band managed honourably to keep it in check, and indeed proved themselves to be exceptional performers. With the exception of the wind player -- sax, clarinet, mouth organ -- whose whole onstage presence, musical and otherwise, seemed fundamentally egotistical and designed to draw attention to himself. He kept bobbing on the spot EXACTLY as though he was at an outdoor rave -- very distracting. His sax solos were the one thing in the band that threatened to pull the music down into a swamp of smooth jazz. Please, Leonard, don't tour with this man again. Ever.
OTOH, Paul Kelly (who opened the show) was great, down-to-earth and humble as ever alongside great musicianship and poweful songs. More, please. His guitarist/ukelele player/backing vocalist (and younger relative) was a great addition, fleshing out Kelly's acoustic sounds with a range of timbres.
A fantastic night of music.
Aaaahhhh, that was an amazing gig last night at the Rod Laver. It was really, really long, as well - it started at 7:15pm, and didn't finish until 11.30. A fantastic setlist, chock a block with classic numbers, and shining through it all, the fabulous persona of Cohen.
Detailed gig rundown
(...Who I finally realise is in some ways akin to Serge Gainsbourg - not just in the deep bass timbre of their voices, but in the intimacy of their songs, the strength and charisma of their personae as performers, and the adulation they inspire in their audiences. I don't know if anyone else has ever made the same comparison, it just came to me as I was listening).
Cohen appeared on stage looking frail and thin, but surprisingly nimble, and still with an amazingly powerful presence. His voice has lost its top register, but the weight of his life experience shows in the expressiveness of his phrasing and his self-deprecating humour, e.g. making reference to the last time he was on stage - ten or fifteen years ago - when he was "just a kid with a crazy dream", i.e. at age 65! So, there was much classic on-stage banter -- "For many years, I made a long study of philosophies and religions... [pause] ... but the cheerfulness kept breaking through" -- which the crowd lapped up. It was a mixed-age audience, but with a definite preponderance of over-30s, and a lot of people who were considerably older than that -- people, I suppose, who grew up with Cohen's music. This context -- singing as though in retrospect, looking back on a rich life -- gave his music a kind of wry humour and pathos that was very affecting.
Downsides ... ahhh, the weird sonic reverb/echo effect in the venue, which I guess is to do with the acoustic problems posed by large-scale structures with a metal frame/roof. I found the internal "echo" of sound hitting the back wall and sides and reverberating pretty disconcerting, although I suspect that a lot of people who go to stadium concerts are either less sensitive to it in the first place, or else are accustomed to hearing poor / highly reverberant acoustics in public places, and so ignore it. I guess the reverb would not be so noticeable at a louder / rock gig, but for more intimate and acoustic music it's pretty deadly. The venue management should install some kind of dampeners.
Second downside -- the clear and present danger of the "Bruce Springsteen" effect. It threatens to happen whenever a music legend is wheeled out in front of a set of uber-technically-competent session / pro musicians. The music is periodically interrupted or "embellished" with indulgent, theatrical solos from band members, intended to show us all how virtuosic they are at playing the mouth organ (or whatever). The total effect is that the songs threaten to drown in an overlay of inoffensive, yet cliched and soul-dulling "jazzy" jamming. It's like they've imported some of the performance rhetorics of jazz performance, but lost the groove in the process.
Well, I was VERY worried about this at the start of the gig, but generally, the band managed honourably to keep it in check, and indeed proved themselves to be exceptional performers. With the exception of the wind player -- sax, clarinet, mouth organ -- whose whole onstage presence, musical and otherwise, seemed fundamentally egotistical and designed to draw attention to himself. He kept bobbing on the spot EXACTLY as though he was at an outdoor rave -- very distracting. His sax solos were the one thing in the band that threatened to pull the music down into a swamp of smooth jazz. Please, Leonard, don't tour with this man again. Ever.
OTOH, Paul Kelly (who opened the show) was great, down-to-earth and humble as ever alongside great musicianship and poweful songs. More, please. His guitarist/ukelele player/backing vocalist (and younger relative) was a great addition, fleshing out Kelly's acoustic sounds with a range of timbres.
A fantastic night of music.