Review from Quebec City's Le Soleil - (via google translation - My French is not quite good enough to attempt a translation!)
Kathleen Lavoie
The Sun
(Québec) for a moment, time stopped yesterday at the Pavillon de la jeunesse. It was, it must be said, a moment of rare quality: a first visit to Leonard Cohen in the capital in 16 years. It was also a moment of gentle, slow, tenderness and humor. A magic moment with an artist who at 74 years, sparkles always forever youthful.
Although the circumstances of the painful return to the scene of Leonard Cohen? the need? have changed the majority of its fans, they did not miss the appointment by Montreal, one of the most contemporary poets celebrated the English-speaking world. They were all there yesterday, so feverish and inflamed in the days of March when all 4300 tickets for the show took off.
The widespread sense of admiration, to the nobility of this return, has quickly given way to something else yesterday, the sincere pleasure of seeing a true legend, more vibrant and relevant than ever, to life before our eyes in a directory d an infinite wealth.
At the preliminary stage, the voice of immense Cohen took the whole place. Assured, serious, responsible. A voice as he is little. A voice as there is only one.
The emotion was the
The mischievous eyes, half veiled under the rim of his borsalino, the suave and déhancher expert on the slow tempo waltzes that made his fame, Leonard Cohen gave a recital of remarkable generosity? thirty titles?, where all the most popular works have found their place.
Dance With Me to the End of Love and The Future, delivered every two early in the program, a Leonard Cohen intense, crouching at the foot of the wonderful guitarist Javier Mas (mandolin, lute, guitar), already announced its colors. The emotion is there. And it was poignant, in Famous Blue Raincoat, Suzanne, Chelsea Hotel # 2 and In My Secret Life, performed in duet with collaborator Sharon Robinson.
The eyes often closed, or riveted to those of one or other of its 10 wonderful musicians, microphone in one hand and the wire wrapped around each other, Cohen was simply transcendent, from beginning to the end of the evening.
Between the artist and his audience, the emotion was also shared, as when the first took over The Partisan, which has three stanzas in french, one of the most applauded.
The poet
And then there was the surprise, the arrangements reviewed and corrected, especially in the monumental Everybody Knows, more rhythmic and disturbing, and the equally loved So Long, Marianne, who took airs Thursday serenade under the virtuoso Javier Mas.
But where Leonard Cohen will be truly able to suspend time is when it allowed another of its jewels, A Thousand Kisses Deep, to resume its original poem. Spoken on a minimal accompaniment, the words of the artist will be affected more than anything. More than its very sad recent history.
In the end, music will have won. Leonard Cohen too. The public, it will be returned filled with the sound of a final air, which was directly addressed. "A long time ago that I love you, I will never forget ..." praised the artist before disappearing backstage.
Here is the link:
http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl ... %26hl%3Den