I agree, Tom, 100%. There is something very different about these youtubes. Leonard is speaking directly to those 20 and 30 year olds and they are reacting in kind. You see this especially in Everybody Knows where the crowd cheers at different lines than what you'd normally experience at Leonard's concerts. You can feel the crowd listening to the words and responding. And dare I say that on Hallelujah, Leonard became a bit Jeff Buckley-esque on the chorus, something that certainly 20 and 30 years would recognize and respond to. I'm very impressed and so were others.Never saw LC so easy on stage. Even waving with his hand like a prophet during Everybody Knows.
From Spin Magazine
http://www.spin.com/articles/best-worst-coachella-day-1
The Best & Worst from Coachella -- Day 1
Leonard Cohen, Franz Ferdinand, Paul McCartney, and more -- SPIN recaps all the mayhem in the California desert.
THE BEST:
Best Set: Leonard Cohen
How fitting that Leonard Cohen's performance of "Hallelujah," his most famous song, would still come as a glorious shock. After all, that's what the melody does: It seeps into your heart and lies dormant -- then erupts as pure emotion. The set was tenderly elegant (brocade rugs and red velvet chairs!), but nothing could distract from Cohen, 75 and beaming, tipping his fedora to a misty-eyed crowd of all ages and roaming the stage like Sinatra, depthless baritone still in terrific form. Artists one-third his age couldn't have culled the ferocity of "First We Take Manhattan" or the heartrending, unadorned lament of "Everybody Knows." And still, when the keys kicked up the first strains of "Hallelujah," those ascending notes led a seismic reaction -- offstage, as an ecstatic audience sang every word back in hymnal, and onstage, where Cohen removed his hat and peered out into audience with reverent, brimming tears. -- Stacey Anderson