Go watch this video. Then go buy this DVD.
Leonard Cohen is 74 years old. This is probably his last tour. He determined to make it a good one. He succeeded. He is performing songs he wrote 40 years ago better than he did then. I do not know how he is doing this, all I know is that this is *not* your typical old-star-past-his-prime-mumbling-songs-and-going-through-the-motions tour that you see from folks like Bob Dylan. I am kicking myself that I didn't get tickets to his Oakland performance earlier this year, but I had no idea -- I wanted to remember Cohen the way he was, not as a shambling old man mumbling through his old backlist. The joke is on me :-(.
But at least I can watch the DVD...
-- Badtux the Music Penguin
I missed him, too, but the closest he came to where I live was Columbia, Maryland, and that was when I had to go back to work after taking a week off so that I could move into my new apartment. And that was a physically taxing week. Getting to see Leonard Cohen live just wasn't in the cards for me due to really bad timing.
ReplyDeleteBut we'll always have his music. And I'll tell you something else...
Speaking as someone who has struggled with depression through most of his adulthood, I can't begin to describe how awesome it is to see a man like Cohen, who has plenty of stories about his own battle with depression to tell, do what he's doing now at the age of 74. I think it's safe to say that when it comes to Leonard Cohen, depression has absolutely lost the war. He beat it. Badly.
Good for him...
Cohen was down here in February. Ticket prices were $139 for the cheap seats and $195 for the floor ones in the arena where they play the Australian Open. Even with the exchange rate, thats still a hell of a price to pay. Last performance we went to there was Dylan, which cost $175 apiece (compared to the $40 we paid when we saw him in Davis, CA in 2004). Worst of all, they made us sit down when we tried to dance (here, not in Cali.) Not that we would have been dancing to Cohen anyway.
ReplyDeleteSo we skipped Leonard. He always reminds me of my ex-wife, who was way into him. Was she ever depressed! I'll take loud, fast, local and cheap any day. Overseas acts cost too damn much.
I've had Live in London for about two months now.
ReplyDeleteI shouldn't got two of them. I've darn near worn it out.
I think I'll follow your instrustions and buy another DVD with this week's egg money.