CONCERT REPORT: Festival Cap Roig, Girona, August 15

[jorcx]

CAP ROIG (GIRONA) - Saturday 15th August 2009

First part:
- Dance Me To The End Of Love
- The Future
- Ain't No Cure For Love
- Bird On The Wire
- Everybody Knows
- In My Secret Life
- Who By Fire
- Lover Lover Lover !!! (absolutely great, I was petrified to hear such a nice version, immaculate, and with more or less similar energy and arrangements as in 1979's Field Commander Cohen)
- Waiting For The Miracle
- Anthem (it was introduced by the recitation of the short poem "The Proof", from the Book Of Longing)

Second part:
- Tower Of Song
- Suzanne
- Sisters of Mercy
- Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye
- The Partisan
- Boogie Street (Sharon Robinson)
- Hallelujah
- I'm Your Man
- Take This Waltz

Encores:
- So Long, Marianne (it included the unusual verses "I forgot your eyes...")
- First We Take Manhattan
- Famous Blue Raincoat
- If It Be Your Will (recited by Leonard first, then sung by the Webb sisters)
- Closing Time
- I Tried To Leave You
- Whither Thou Goest

[MaryB]

OMG!!! Lover, Lover, Lover in the setlist!!!! Can't wait to see reviews of this concert. Hope they keep LLL in the lineup !

[The Guest]

Unforgettable evening in Cap Roig. Superb setlist (great surprise with 'Lover Lover Lover'!), charismatic and in a perfect shape, Mr. Cohen; precission and imagination with Mr. Mas, and elegance and art with the whole band.

Gràcies, senyor Cohen, ens tornarem a veure a Barcelona! See you at the Palau Sant Jordi, Barcelona, September 21st, to celebrate all together your 75th anniversary!

[ali2009]

a leonard concert without lover lover is like beatels without "yeasterday"///

very happey, i hope it will be in the american tour/

[tomsakic]

TV snippet: TV GIRONA _ NOTÍCIES _ LEONARD COHEN AL FESTIVAL DE CAP ROIG _ 17/08/2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32xkXro2CKk


So Long, Marianne: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MZwbQ724_k
Have to notice that this version is much slower than the one he sung in Venice a week ago!

[friscogrl]

OOOOOHH! Lover Lover Lover is my favorite song (OK second favorite, first is The Window) on Field Commander Cohen. Would love to hear it in Barcelona or las Vegas, or San jose! I am sure the concert goers in Girona were thrilled to hear it.

M

[davem99]

Well what can I say after witnessing Leonard in Girona on Saturday night.

Let's start at the beginning.

We drove from Girona out to Cap Roig ealry and thought we would grab a bite to eat on the way. However we did not account for schematic maps drawn by Spaniards on the back of tickets.

Talk about a venue that was near impossible to find.

Suffice to say what should have been a 40 minute car ride tops took almost 2 hours.

The botanical gardens in the ground of which the gig was taking place are on top of a cliff overlooking the Meditteranean Sea. To get to them you have to drive through a housing estate up a hillside til you get to the top and the gardens appear in front of you.

However there are no local signs telling you Cap Roig is this or that way anywhere until you get on the road through the housing estate and follow the gig posters for the festival up the hill.

We got to the top and parked up in a car park 50 yds from the gate and it was free!!

We decided to try and get something to eat in the gig as there was nothing in the surrounding streets we passed on the way up.

We waited with the high society of Girona for the gates to open. We were shall we say, casually dressed whereas loads of others were in their designer finery.

When we got in we realised why. Apart from the ticket prices keeping the riff raff ar bay, aside from us, the catering at the festival was by El Cellar de Can Roca, the Michelin starred restaurant we dined at two nights earlier.

They had both an informal set up serving fillet steak sandwiches and champagne at €10 and €50 a bottle. No beer and only water or wine as alternative drink choices. There was also a tent where the designer dressed mod headed for a full sit down meal pre gig.

Being cheap and generally broke after the meal two nights earlier we shared a steak barm and a bottle of water and wandered around the gardens waiting for gig time to arrive.

We took our seats which were amongst the best in the house and which the people behind and alongside us had paid three to four times more for. Go figure.

The night had cooled nicely to a gentle 75 degrees by 10pm as the lights dimmed and we were in the presence of Mr Cohen once again.

The setlist was great (see bottom of this email).

The sound was superb, the audience totally silent and respectful.

However, one thing I have noticed from the two recent gigs I have seen in Liverpool and again here in Girona is how comparatively rough the edges are on the Live in London CD. IMHO they really should have left releasing both the CD's and DVD's from this tour until the end. The current performances are staggering.

Leonard now sounds so much better than in 2008 and the band have bonded as a telepathic bunch of musicians and are playing so much better than they were a year ago. And we thought they were perfect then!

Leonard is simply a man performing at a level he has never done in his career until now. He has never been better. I had never seen him perform before this tour for the first time but I have heard loads of recording from through the years and he sounds so much better now.

He is still running on and dancing off each night. Although the dance is a little to close to Eric and Ernie and I expect to hear him sing Bring Me Sunshine in the coming few gigs.

Personally it was just great to hear him sing Lover Lover Lover which was the big surprise in the first set.

The second set had The Partisan which as ever was received with whoops of approval by the Spanish audience.

There was a small contingent of the Sharon Robinson fan club near us and cries of we love you Sharon were heard through the night. Quite right too!

Those pesky Webb Sisters still insist on doing cartwheels during The Future. I approve too.

The set seemed to go so fast and before we knew it it was 12-15am and encore time was here.

Famous Blue Raincoat was delivered impeccably and If It Be Your Will was as ever a dream.

As Withou Thou Goest drifted off over the Med and Leonard bid us farewell at 1-10am we made our way to the exit to be blocked by police holding us back to allow Leonard and band to leave ahead of the traffic jams.

We had parked near the gate so got into our car quickly and was driving down the hill about four cars behind the van. Let's face it the driver was not the fastest and would not get the job for the Stones. The minivan turned right into a hotel about a mile down the road and we nearly pulled in to go into the hotel to try and catch a quick word with the band but decided against it.

We headed back to Girona where we had a few beers some horrible pizza and crawled to bed around 3-30am.

The night was a perfect end to our three days in Girona and tired but blissed out we drifted to sleep.

I find it hard to now come to terms with the fact that I will in all likelyhood never see Leonard perform live again.

However I temper this with the fact that I have now seen him 6 times in the last 15 months, four times in venues holding less than 2,000 people. I am truly fortunate.

Sometimes your heroes let you down when you meet them (as I had the honour of doing in 2007) and when you see them live. Leonard not only did not let you down he was so much more than I ever dreamed he could be.

Thank you Leonard for making a dream so fantastically real in the last two years.

Dave

[Mabeanie1]

Thank you Leonard for making a dream so fantastically real in the last two years.

Dave

Dave

Thank you for summing up the experience of the last 16 months or so wonderfully well in these few words. I am fortunate enough to still be living the dream but I know that it will come to an end all too soon. When that happens I will have the memories of a lifetime to look back on. Memories of that time when the seemingly impossible became possible.

Wendy

PS You may remember me from the final show at the Manchester Opera House on June 20. I was the one sat next to you who sobbed and sobbed and sobbed when the show ended because I thought I would never see Leonard again. Little did I know then that I would still be following the tour more than a year later!!

[jorcx]

Thanks for the review Dave, I agree with your enthusiasm about Leonard being at the top of his game nowadays...
It's interesting to read your experience because I also was abroad to see Leonard last year, in Dublin, Lucca and London, and all the music satisfactions where mixed with some touristic adventures as well, but this time it was home for me and I enjoyed it with all of the comfort and it was great.

[MaryB]

Thank you davem99 for a beautiful and beautifully written review. And you passed up a chance to meetup with all involved ? You will forever have the wonderful memory of this night. I appreciate you taking me there with you through your post.

Kindest regards,
Mary