@pezmico - Hyped about the Leonard Cohen show tonight in Auckland!
@birds_knees - So I've actually found a dress to wear to #LeonardCohen tonight, but I don't know which shoes to wear !!
@Weebop - Tempted to start a bucket list just so I can add & immediately cross off hearing Leonard Cohen sound checking. Bring on tonight!
@caniwiwilliams - Leonard Cohen's Auckland dressing room will have bagels, smoked meat & rye bread from @alsdelinz. Montreal specialties for a Montreal guy.
@DeeeeeThomson - So hipster it hurts.... At Leonard Cohen, with hundreds of ageing hippies and on trend hipsters.
@ronw44 - Leonard Cohen World Tour kicks off in 45 minutes. Get down here fast if you want to go to best gig in town tonight #leonardcohenworldtour
@MicheleACourt - Taking myself out on a date to #leonardcohen. Beside myself with joy.
@birds_knees - Town is PACKED! Seems everyone is going to #leonardcohen
@birds_knees - Managed to survive the queue for the merchandise stand, got my tshirt & a CD for my mum #leonardcohen
Swimming in a sea of fedoras - if I’d planned better I would have unearthed mine! #leonardcohen
@djsubstancenz - Aww all the oldies are out, rocking their No. 1 outfit for the Leonard Cohen concert at Vector tonight.
@AtomicPlayb0y - Waiting for Leonard Cohen. 10 from the front. pic.twitter.com/7tfBg68D6k https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bb_Vc3RCAAAAvVh.jpg
@PaulaYeoman - You can never see Leonard Cohen too many times #vector
@barbarikkizzle - Potentially the youngest person at Leonard Cohen by a 30 year gap
@MicheleACourt - Sweet Jesus, you can get oysters & champagne at the #leonardcohen snack bar.
@KieranScottFoto - At Leonard Cohen ... Awesome lighting and it hasn't even started http://fb.me/6yGOmm7JG
@KieranScottFoto - Last show of a six year tour... Who is he again? I know all these songs.... http://fb.me/2QqUyA7Hq
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@noellevivien - A lot of orange at Leonard Cohen. Saffron overtones? Robe related?
@kevpub - Leonard Cohen! A great Christmas present. Bring on the master. (@ Vector Arena - @thevectorarena for Leonard Cohen)
[Marily Waring – politician/member of parliament]@WinstonAldworth - Marilyn Waring sitting behind me at Leonard Cohen concert. WE ARE GOING TO PARTAY!!!!
@MicheleACourt - It is possible I have the best seat in the house for a short person! #leonardcohen pic.twitter.com/M6pNDvxOci
@amirkayal - Desperately waiting for #Leonardcohen to be on stage. : )
@amirkayal - It's a bit awkard to be surrounded by youth of 70s & 80s! #Leonardcohen.
@WinstonAldworth - Party like you're at a Leonard Cohen concert with member of the Muldoon caucus! #whoopwhoop #crossthefloor pic.twitter.com/YzXK81RlaR https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bb_bh5SCYAAPymC.jpg
@amirkayal - And the legend is on stage #Leonardcohen pic.twitter.com/3AB5myqiOt https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bb_c9adCIAIOWC_.jpg
@elliesmith01 - Took mum and dad to Leonard Cohen tonight. They are fan girling and I'm pretty sure I'm the youngest… http://instagram.com/p/iLPG9KTcCP/ http://distilleryimage10.ak.instagram.c ... 65c2_8.jpg
@birds_knees - Leonard Cohen takes the stage <3 http://instagram.com/p/iLW964vIRS/
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@gavinbuchanan - #leonardcohen hero! Voice hasn't changed in 40 yrs - awesome show
@JulieAnneGenter - Leonard Cohen. #legend
@barbarikkizzle - Leonard Cohen is literally the most true gentleman in existence
@StuJenner - Last night of Leonard Cohen tour in Auckland. pic.twitter.com/cTRlmOSKoz
@Ferrissimo - Half time at Leonard Cohen concert. It's even better than I'd dared hope. Mr Cohen is truly incredible!
@chrimbo79 - Has somehow found himself watching Leonard Cohen. He spends a lot of the time on his knees! (@ Vector Arena)
@gumdigger - @ Leonard Cohen concert in Akld. Master of misery is the consummate professional. Wow! What a gr8 1st set. Tower of song & hallelujah coming
@rohanadarkar - Leonard Cohen @ Vector Arena http://instagram.com/p/iLYfeDFZXP/
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@alsdelinz - Beautiful Leonard Cohen http://fb.me/PjNQWaCk
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@rohanadarkar - Leonard Cohen @ Vector Arena http://instagram.com/p/iLYfeDFZXP/
Best show I've ever been to. Best sound I've ever heard at a live show.
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@amirkayal - This guy is amazing, he just doesn't leave the stage. Returned on stage for the 4th time! #Leonardcohen
@rohanadarkar - The Webb Sisters. Enough said.
@pezmico - Leonard Cohen is coolness incarnate. I need a hat and a deep voice.
@rohanadarkar - Hearts and hands LeonardCohen @ Vector Arena http://instagram.com/p/iLm8bxFZSE/
@Captain_Person - The Leonard Cohen gig was just perfect from beginning to end. Words cannot do it justice.
@AkldFemAction - Leonard Cohen, still the only musician to bring tears to my eyes.
@rohanadarkar - Leonard Cohen. Just how much talent is an unfair helping? @ Vector Arena http://instagram.com/p/iLmwUclZR5/
@jennyastewart - Leonard Cohen shows age hasn't diminished his talents. 3 1/2 hours on stage . Every minute was amazing !
@ronw44 - Leonard Cohen Auckland concert ended after 3 hours 45 minutes. Fabulous evening. Full house
@birds_knees - Impressed in every way by #leonardcohen ‘s performance tonight, I feel honoured to have seen him live in my lifetime.
STATIGRAM -@MicheleACourt - Kind, sweet, dignified, respectful - everyone on #leonardcohen's stage tonight. Humanity was elevated.
Leonard Cohen Bedazzles Auckland
AIMIE CRONIN
Last updated 07:46 22/12/2013
Leonard Cohen - Reuters
LEGEND: Leonard Cohen is still giving stunning performances into his late 70s.
Leonard Cohen
Auckland, Vector Arena December 21
There are so many Leonard Cohen lookalikes at Vector Arena, you think you'll be desensitised when you see him. The trademark hats are everywhere. The place smells like a mixture of expensive perfume and incense. Thirty year olds feel young.
These walls are used to the travelling pop star circus and a crowd of youngsters who capture the spectacle behind the glow of their phones. But last night, Vector Arena enjoyed a different crowd as Leonard Cohen and his band gave the final show of their world tour.
"Tonight, and especially tonight," he said, "we're going to give you everything we've got."
No great light show, no dramatic costume changes, no giant props, just the man and the music. It was everything.
He sang all the greats. He called us his friends. He belted out a great deal of the set from down on his knees. When he was upright, he bopped. He took his hat off to every band member and gave each plenty of time to dazzle us. In return, they expertly propped Cohen up without stealing the limelight. They all worked beautifully together.
Leonard Cohen's songs are so great that sometimes you have to close your eyes. Suzanne was one. And Anthem. And Tower of Song. You look back to see others with their eyes closed, smiling, like they are holding their faces up to the sun. A few try capturing it on their phones, but nothing would come close to having been there.
The spoken word version of Thousand Kisses Deep was another highlight. Cohen sings and speaks as though he's whispering in your ear.
"I loved you when you opened, like a lily to the heat, you see I'm just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet, who loved you with his frozen love, his second hand physique, with all he is and all he was, a thousand kisses deep."
The crowd fell more in love with the man as the evening progressed. At times you wonder how he pulls it off - being 79 years old and singing an enormous amount about sex - but he's been a charmer his whole life and tonight was no different.
Somewhere around the middle of the show, a keyboard was placed in front of Cohen. He apologised for it. It's not teched-out and digital, he said, "but it speaks of an earlier time, a gentler time." And that's exactly how the night felt.
At the end, after countless standing ovations and four encores, he thanked us for all the years we have paid attention to his songs and said, "drive carefully home and don't catch a cold. May you be surrounded by friends and family all the days of your life ... or god bless you in your solitude."
He took his hat off to us and bowed deeply through our cheers and we all fell in love with him a little more as we watched him skip like a young man, off the stage.
- © Fairfax NZ News
Leonard Cohen – Vector Arena December 21, 2013
It was like a reunion of old friends…Leonard Cohen, his band and his fans…back together in Auckland’s Vector Arena for the third time in five years. But, this show had a special feel about it, a sense of history, as the 79-year-old Cohen announced that, after five years on the road, this was the last show of the tour.
I know people who didn’t attend this show because they saw him either in 2009 or 2010 and where so overwhelmed by how perfect the show was that they didn’t want to “ruin” the experience by daring to see him again. Others stayed away fearing that it would be too similar to the previous shows and so there was no reason to see it again.
While I kind of understand both views, I have to say, you missed one of the best shows ever to come this way.
Yes, Leonard and his incredible band started out with Dance Me To The End Of Love, just as they had done in the two previous shows and yes, the set list included Everybody Knows, Bird On A Wire, Tower Of Song and Hallelujah…all of which had been performed here before. But, my God, they were beautiful versions! And why wouldn’t you want to hear them again?
Fortunately, plenty of people did, as the Vector was just about full.
The main difference between this show and the ones previous was the addition of songs from Cohen’s 2012 album, Old Ideas. There were three during the first half of the show (Darkness, Amen and Come Healing) and one during the second half (Going Home). These new entries stood up well against his old classics, with Going Home drawing plenty of laughs as Cohen referred to himself as “a lazy bastard living in a suit”.
In fact, there was plenty of humour throughout the three-hour show. At the beginning, Leonard thanked the folks sitting high up for endangering themselves and then thanks the rest of the crowd for endangering their budgets by buying tickets.
Cohen has held the same band together throughout his long tour and they are simply amazing:
Roscoe Beck – bass & musical director
Javier Mas – archilaud, guitar, bandurria
Mitch Watkins – guitars
Alexandru Bublitchi –violins
Rafael Bernardo Gayol – drums
Neil Larsen – keyboards
Sharon Robinson – vocals
The Webb Sisters – vocals
Mike Scoble – harmonica
Long-time collaborators Sharon Robinson got her moment in the spotlight when she sang Alexandra Leaving and was absolutely mesmerizing…what a voice.
The Webb Sisters performed If It Be Your Will with a delicate touch that made the song that much more beautiful.
And as for Leonard, well, he’s never sounded better. He hit some impossibly low notes during Bird On A Wire and did a stunning recitation of A Thousand Kisses Deep that left me and about 10,000 other fans breathless. And I have to say that his performance of Famous Blue Raincoat was one for the ages.
This very special night ended with eight encores that eventually ended with Cohen’s entire crew joining him on stage for a sing-along of The Drifters’ hit Save The Last Dance For Me. A perfect end to a perfect night.
Of course at age 79, who knows if we will get the chance to see Leonard again? But judging by the spring in his step as he left the stage after his three-hour show, I’m guessing we haven’t seen the last of him. And even if he doesn’t return, well, we still have all those wonderful songs to listen to.
Marty Duda
Click on any image to view a gallery of photos taken by The 13th Floor’s Michael Flynn:
Leonard Cohen set list:
First half
Dance Me To The End Of Love
The Future
Bird On A Wire
Everybody Knows
Who By Fire
Darkness
Amen
Come Healing
Waiting For The Miracle
Lover Lover Lover
Anthem
Second Half
Tower Of Song
Suzanne
Chelsea Hotel #2
The Partisan
Alexandra Leaving
I’m Your Man
A Thousand Kisses Deep
Hallelujah
Take This Waltz
So Long, Marianne
Going Home
First We Take Manhattan
Famous Blue Raincoat
If It Be Your Will
Closing Time
I Tried To Leave You
Save The Last Dance For Me
One Comment so far -
Anita rundlof
December 22, 2013 at 9:42 am
The best show ever, saw it in Stockholm, so perfect and Leonard great singer and entertainer, and his band…wow….<3
Concert Review: Leonard Cohen, Vector Arena
By John Roughan
5:53 PM Sunday Dec 22, 2013
Respect flows like wine as crowd thrills to classics old and new and musicians given their moment to shine.
Singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen is impressively agile for a 79-year-old.
'Friends", he called the crowd that packed Vector Arena to see the dark poet of song who had enchanted them at times in their youth.
They know him better now. When he skipped on to the stage for the final concert of his third tour in five years, they rose in ovation before he had sung a note. Leonard Cohen, nearing 80, doffed his now-trademark hat, thanked them genuinely and rewarded them with more than three hours from his life's catalogue.
The splendid band around him is almost as well known to the audience now, thanks to his frequent introductions and the respect he pays them throughout. This time he had a different guitarist, Mitch Watkins, and a violinist, Alexandru Bublitchi, in place of the wind instruments of previous tours.
The sound was not as full but the violin brought some beautiful solos to songs such as Suzanne. Cohen knows the ones he must do: I'm Your Man, Tower of Song, Chelsea Hotel, Hallelujah, of course.
He knows exactly how much of the familiar repertoire to repeat. As on previous visits, he opened with two upbeat numbers from The Future album, followed by Bird on the Wire, the deceptively simple tune that he is said to believe he has never quite nailed.
Then came the new ones, from the album Old Ideas released last year. On the recording the songs sound sleepy and almost carelessly indulgent. On stage, he invests them with vocal intensity and songs such as Amen and Show me the Place are revealed as anthems to rank with his best.
Best of them all is Come Healing, a haunting close harmony with his back-up singers, Sharon Robinson and the Webb Sisters.
Robinson, co-composer of some of his work, stole the show for a moment on Saturday night. He gave her a solo for the sublime Alexandra Leaving which they recorded in duet on the Ten Songs collection. Robinson slowed it down, drew it out and made it exquisite.
Hattie and Charley Webb had to wait for the encores for their solo, the heavenly If it Be Your Will, with the angelic Hattie playing harp.
Cohen gives all of his supporting cast their moment in the light, turns to them and doffs his hat while he listens. Respect is the defining character of his performance, not just for them but for the audience, the music and the words that only he knows how hard he worked to chisel them to what he wanted, often long ago.
It is the mature respect that does not take itself too seriously. He calls himself, in another track from the latest album, "a lazy bastard living in a suit". One of those words is not true. On stage he is anything but lazy, dropping to his knees and standing up on queue, still lithe at 79.
After two-and-a-half hours he skipped from the stage to another standing ovation, but it was another 45 minutes before we let him go. For the last of four encores he departed from his own material to lead the audience in Save the Last Dance for Me. But the most appropriate sign-off came on the second encore. Famous Blue Raincoat normally ends, "sincerely, L Cohen". This time he sang, "sincerely, a friend".
Read more by John Roughan
Leonard Cohen
By Kelly Carmichael
Artist: Leonard Cohen
Date / Venue: Saturday December 21st, Vector Arena, Auckland
Fresh from performances in Christchurch and Wellington, the final show of Leonard Cohen's celebrated Old Ideas world tour unfurled in Auckland on Saturday evening. Before even sounding a note, the packed Vector Arena gave Cohen a standing ovation as he took the stage, a fitting tribute to one of the greatest singer songwriters of the modern age.
Although Cohen and his band had over 120 shows under their belt from a tour that began in August 2012, he promised Aucklanders that "tonight and especially tonight, we're going to give you everything we've got." Beginning with three of his most celebrated songs Dance Me to the End of Love, The Future and Bird on a Wire Cohen treated the delighted audience to highlights from his long career and most recent album. Delivered in the gritty timbre that can set the hairs on the back of your neck alive, Leonard Cohen's lyrics were as evocative as ever and that characteristic voice had lost none of its delightful leathery growl.
Many in the crowd were longtime Leonard Cohen fans, they'd been with him for years and he treated them like old friends. With profound humility and gratitude it felt like Cohen invited his audience to share not only in his back catalogue, but also to recall the memories we attach to songs that impact our lives. That's the beautiful thing about Cohen's music - the insightful, witty and occasionally nihilistic words are his, but the songs become ours, they belong to the listeners. That, perhaps, is Cohen's greatest gift to his fans.
Also on stage were more old friends, band members and back up singers who have toured with Cohen for many years, respectfully introduced and honored by him for their contribution and talent. The violinist Alexandru Bublitchi added a welcome and fiery gypsy flavour to several songs, while Cohen's collaborator Sharon Robinson sang their song Alexandra Leaving solo. The sublime Come Healing from the 2012 Old Ideas album, a secular hymn for our time, saw Cohen pair in close harmony with Charley and Hattie Webb.
Leonard Cohen is a hypnotic live performer. His is a measured, thoughtful and intensely felt performance, more likely than not delivered on his knees before quickly springing back up again. In his hands the melancholy lyrics of Tower of Song find a sweet poignancy and humorous irony, a joke the audience is in on and enjoys just as much as the singer. The nearly 80 year old Cohen has stage presence and charisma fitting for someone Lou Reed described as "...a figure whose body of work achieves greater mystery and depth as time goes on." He's also still looking pretty sharp in that trademark fedora and dark suit.
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