Post
by Suemerlyn » Thu Sep 09, 2010 4:36 pm
Hey astranger,
One short report from sebbie below.
Plus here,s my report, with some strange punctuation on this Swiss keyboard with some non matching keys..
Actually, I am very lucky to have got to this gig at all. My Easyjet flight the night before, on 7th September from London Gatwick to Basel, was cancelled due to a French Air Traffic Controllers strike, and I waited with about 1000 other people whose flights were also cancelled, in a long line for over 4 hours to get to the Easyjet customer service counter. I was lucky!! Got one of the last flight tickets for the next day *day of the concert!* to Zurich, then took a train to Basel. No sleep at all, no hotels available anywhere near Gatwick, so Gatwick Airport was my overnight stay. Amazing what you can do if you really want to...
Went with a sick Swiss friend with a horrible cold, who lives in Basel and hadn,t seen Leonard since the 80,s, who couldn,t wait to see him again!! When she met me she told me she didn,t have the heart to tell me while I was uncertain I could actually get to Switzerland that "her finger slipped" when she was doing the booking - a comment Leonard may have appreciated!! - and our tickets were not in Row 1 as I thought, but in Row 11.Anyway we could see pretty well, and ran down to nearer the front for the encores..have posted the set list for you, Maarten.
Leonard was in his usual fantastic form as was the whole band, though I noticed Charlie was sitting on a high stool for some of the time. I was expecting a restrained response from the audience as my friend though that the Swiss are not very demonstrative, but people were cheering even just after Dance Me, and they got more excited as the concert went on.
Truly amazing musical intro from Javier to one of my favourite Cohen sings, Who by Fire - which always reminds me Hydra and old documentary of Leonard walking on the agora and the port years ago. Mr Mas is an inspired musician, and he got a well deserved tumult of applause for this. Dino too was celebrated with cheers and applause several times, and he couldn,t stop grinning.
And dear Leonard - loved and appreciated here as everywhere else, smiled a lot and his grin broadened when some intrepid audience members near the front held up a large home made cotton banner with Lover Lover Lover painted on it in big black letters, during the first encore. He didn,t sing it, but he obviously appreciated the banner.
Couple of other things I noticed. During the long encores - and of course if it is your one and only concert, unlike some of us mad fanatics on the Forum, you assume several times that the concert is over - and then it isn,t. Leonard comes dancing back on again. And treats you to another song or two. But quite a few people left in between each encore. Maybe trams and buses stop early in Basel?? Or something. Shame for those that didn,t make it all the way through. The other thing that made me laugh was - from where I was standing during all the encores, a few rows from the front, I could see the silhouette of a dancing man at the front, waving his arms to Leonard,s rhythms and bobbing and jumping up and down. Great fun to watch as a joyful background to Leonard and the band.
Loved it all, nearly 4 hours of it - nearly midnight before the stage was finally empty of musicians and full of technicians. Wonderful stuff, love you Leonard and all. I really want to own Feels So Good, love the words, but I guess it will be quite a long wait for the album.
