Leonard Cohen still the man
By Mike Devlin,
Postmedia News November 26, 2010
Leonard Cohen's performance Tuesday in Victoria will be show No. 241 on his tour schedule.
When the trek comes to a close in December, its final tally will likely read: a staggering
247 dates completed, more than 6,000 songs performed, and approximately 741 hours of onstage
greatness.Photograph by: Handout, u99/ZUMA/Keystone Press
During the opening night of what would eventually become a triumphant comeback tour -- what one could argue was one of the most astonishing in recent memory -- Leonard Cohen played to just 700 people at a theatre in Fredericton, N.B.
Attendance for the first tour in 15 years from the grandmaster of singer-songwriters only got better as it went along. Nearly every stop that followed Fredericton -- from Oslo to Athens -- saw Cohen and his band play to audiences nearly 10 times that size. Suffice it to say, few world tours in recent memory have been so warmly received.
Now, with the tour in its third calendar year, the end for Cohen and his bandmates appears to have arrived. According to Cohen's longtime musical director, bassist Roscoe Beck, there's nothing on the tour schedule beyond Dec. 11, the second of two Caesars Palace concerts in Las Vegas.
"We'll see what happens after that," Beck said.
Cohen's performance Tuesday in Victoria will be show No. 241 on the schedule. When the trek comes to a close in December, its final tally will likely read: a staggering 247 dates completed, more than 6,000 songs performed, and approximately 741 hours of onstage greatness.
Beck, reached earlier in the tour during a stop in Wellington, New Zealand, has a clear recollection of the tour's early performances. Beck had toured with Cohen numerous times in the past, so the act of playing with the Montreal native wasn't a particularly extraordinary achievement in itself. Cohen felt the same way at first, Beck said. He was equally unprepared for what awaited him.
"There was some expectation, via the promoters, that this could be a very big, successful tour. But still, Leonard would say things to me like, 'Gee, I wonder if there's an audience out there for me.'"
Once the shows started to unspool, Beck knew it was shaping up to be a rarefied tour, courtesy of a very special and unique performer. "Once we started performing, the reception for him was so warm. It was overwhelming. Having toured with him before, I knew his fans were very devoted and very enthusiastic. But the numbers of fans now who feel that way are much greater."
The 76-year-old singer has been in huge demand for the better part of four years. His resurgence in popularity got underway in 2006 with the release of Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, a concert and documentary during which his work was feted by U2, Rufus Wainwright, Nick Cave and others. That predated a massive reissue campaign by Cohen's label, Columbia Records, which put the majority of Cohen's catalogue, complete with bonus tracks and expanded artwork, back in stores in 2007.
Multiple releases in each following year prove that, no matter how much Cohen is being offered, fans continue to lust for more. New songs have been written, three of which -- "The Darkness," "Feels So Good," "Born in Chains" -- are in the setlist for Cohen's upcoming Canadian performances, which also includes a Dec. 2 appearance in Vancouver.
Beck has played in the neighbourhood of 500 shows with Cohen, dating back to their first tour together in 1979. The evolution of their relationship has been ongoing, Beck said, as Cohen never stays in one frame of mind for long. But the one aspect of life with Cohen that never changes, according to Beck, is the emotion involved.
"If you could play these songs without making an emotional connection, you wouldn't be the right musician to be playing them. You wouldn't belong in this band."
Cohen is a notoriously private public figure. In every sense, he lets the music do the talking. Beck has a clear indication of who Cohen is as a person, in spite of the singer's well-documented modesty when it comes to his own music.
That is the one trait that makes him difficult to read, Beck said.
"He's certainly aware that the tour is a great success. As to how he judges his own work over the years, I have no idea. That's not something he really speaks of. I spend a lot of time with Leonard away from the bandstand, and that is something he never speaks of.
"Every now and then, I might remind him of some old song we're not currently playing and will spontaneously start singing one of his older songs, or pull out a guitar and start playing, and he'll turn around and go, 'That's a good song' with a little smile on his face."
Leonard Cohen plays Victoria Nov 30 and Vancouver Dec. 2.
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