Leonard Cohen - Live in London - GuitarTalk Community

Leonard Cohen - Live in London

Riaan

Got the DVD this afternoon and it blew me away... If you're a Leonard Cohen fan, you gotta get this.

At 72 Leonard is still extremely capable and makes all his old songs sound fresh with new meaning. And an absolutely brilliant band with gorgeous and very good background vocalists! One of the guitarists plays an interesting range of twelve strings - guitar and mandolin. He somehow reminds me of Santana, in looks and in playing style. Leonard plays on a very nice Godin Multiac nylon string - and now I'm gassing after one of those!

Awesome show and a must have DVD - wish I could have been there to see that show live.

Squonk

Good stuff Riaan

Does he still evoke enough emotion to slit your wrists?

Bob-Dubery

Squonk wrote: Good stuff Riaan

Does he still evoke enough emotion to slit your wrists?

I've always thought that was a bit of an unfair tag to hang on Cohen. There are other artists who are lyrically darker or more depressing. Richard Thompson seems (as somebody once wrote of Marlowe) "much concerned with the skull beneath the skin" and wrote some very bleak songs in the early 70s. Nick Drake was a pretty miserable git, and if you really want to contemplate the futility and awfulness of it all and reach for the razor blades then Pink Floyd circa The Wall and The Final Cut (bad pun) are the way to go.

Or how about Barry McGuire's Eve Of Destruction? Stephen Stills ended 4 & 20 with the words "I embrace the many coloured beast, and I find myself just wishing that my life would simply cease." And, of course, there was the character in a Johnny Cash song who "shot a man in Reno just to watch him die."

Not that Cohen is a barrel of laughs, but he's by no means the most miserable git to ever get up on stage with a guitar.

Riaan

Not that Cohen is a barrel of laughs, but he's by no means the most miserable git to ever get up on stage with a guitar.

True. He's actually surprisingly funny on stage, very tongue in cheek at times. For instance, he begins the show by saying "Last time I played here was 12 years ago, I was a 60 year old kid with a crazy dream". At times he smiles at his own lyrics, as if struck by irony.

Rather than finding them depressing, I experience his songs more as "insightful" if you know what I mean. Life as it really is. But maybe that's just me, I also like Roger Waters and I'm quite a cynic! What struck me also was that he is extremely humble and polite on stage, thanking the audience with genuine delight at their applause, giving lots and lots of credit to the band and so on.

Bob-Dubery

Riaan wrote:
Rather than finding them depressing, I experience his songs more as "insightful" if you know what I mean. Life as it really is.

Good for you ? I haven't got a clue what he's on about most of the time. Well there's that line about "giving me head", but other than that...

Bob-Dubery

Riaan wrote: Rather than finding them depressing, I experience his songs more as "insightful" if you know what I mean. Life as it really is. But maybe that's just me,

For me the beauty in song and in music in general has little to do with the positivity or the negativity of the subject but lies in the construction, the craftsmanship. There are artists who can portray bleak or violent or even plain mundane things in a way that is breathtakingly beautiful.

Riaan

Good for you I haven't got a clue what he's on about most of the time. Well there's that line about "giving me head", but other than that...

LOL! It now seems somewhat poignant when a stooped, thin and gray haired old man sings "I ache in the places where I used to play" ?

the construction, the craftsmanship

Yes, he's a master of language and it shows even when he chats inbetween songs. At the beginning he thanks those that came a long way to see the show, calling them the "geographically inconvenienced".

Whenever I read about political scandal or similar things in the papers, I can't help but think of the song "Everybody Knows". But I think the power of lyrics like his (and Pink Floyd's) lies in the fact that due to it's abstract nature, it can be applied to everyone's circumstances, it has significance to all but in different ways. That's true art for me.

Bob-Dubery

Riaan wrote:
Whenever I read about political scandal or similar things in the papers, I can't help but think of the song "Everybody Knows". But I think the power of lyrics like his (and Pink Floyd's) lies in the fact that due to it's abstract nature, it can be applied to everyone's circumstances, it has significance to all but in different ways. That's true art for me.

Yes. True poets manage to touch on things that are universal - thus the words often have a greater resonance, not to mention a longer shelf life.

I sing a song "Ye Jacobites By Name" that is often attributed to Robbie Burns. In fact Burns rewrote it. The original lyrics dealt specifically with the second Jacobite uprising and were addressed at specific events and persons. Burns's rewrite takes the song a very different way, it's more about revolutions and the revolutionary impulse and perhaps the aftermath of the revolution. And this version just keeps on ringing down through the ages. A brilliant piece of writing (or rewriting).

The beauty of "Everybody Knows" is that it's not too specific. It captures a mood and recurring themes rather than targets a specific event.

AlanRatcliffe

Riaan wrote: Got the DVD this afternoon and it blew me away... If you're a Leonard Cohen fan, you gotta get this.

Will do. Have quite a few Cohen clips from through the years and always enjoyed them.

One of the guitarists plays an interesting range of twelve strings - guitar and mandolin.

Is that Sharon Robinson? She's often his musical collaborator (Ten New Songs was arguably as much her CD as his). In fact, he often teams up with women for his albums. Wise man. ?

Leonard plays on a very nice Godin Multiac nylon string - and now I'm gassing after one of those!

I've had GAS for one of those for some time now.

Riaan

Is that Sharon Robinson? She's often his musical collaborator

She only does background vocals on this, really nice voice BTW.

The guitarist is Javier Mas, the booklet lists him as playing the banduria, laud, archilaud and 12 string guitar. I thought they were guitars and mandolins...

Bob Metzer is the lead guitarist (plays a very nice Tele)

There's also a very interersting wind instrument, which seems to be some kind of MIDI thing.