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Re: CONCERT REPORT: Vienna, Austria - July 27, 2013

Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 3:20 pm
by mutti
Thanks everyone for the concert reports and video's. Sounds like it was magnificent. And in such a beautiful city...
I especially enjoyed listening to the 'No No No's' in Closing Time and the enthusiasim of the crowd when Take this Waltz was sung.
Thanks again for taking the time to post your reports.
To those criticizing multiple concert-going, my 2 cents: every artist has his/her own way of performing live, there's no good or bad so I don't really understand why go into comparisons.. Similarly, every fan has the prerogative to choose whether they wish to attend only 1 concert a leg or 10+ and in that too, there's no good or bad. Just choice.
I personally think each night has its unique vibe, affected by so many factors, same setlist or not; for me, no concert was ever same as one before it, even when I attended them night after night.
Being able to see a favorite artist live is a privilege at end of the day, how one chooses to be a fan -- to each his own.
Thank you Sharon E for your comments above...this reflects how exactly how I feel.
Leslie

Re: CONCERT REPORT: Vienna, Austria - July 27, 2013

Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 3:36 pm
by neo
MattW wrote:
stella s. wrote:And maybe you want to read this. It's a very critical review of the Vienna concert ... the reviewer did not like hearing the old songs all over again. :D
http://derstandard.at/1373513962040/Die ... turn-Taste
It's actually a positive review. It's just the way Schachinger (the critic) writes -- the condescending tone, the snide put-downs are all part of the package. As far as Schachinger-reviews go, this one is quite mild ;)

Matt

But the problem goes way deeper, right down to the inherent self-hatred of Schachinger. He is just like a man, who cant get a hard-on in front of a beautiful woman. Well, some things like that happen even in the city of Freud... :lol:

Re: CONCERT REPORT: Vienna, Austria - July 27, 2013

Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 3:40 pm
by neo
gallina wrote:Hi friends, I've created a playlist on my youtube channel, so you can watch all my videos from the concert.

Szilvia

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... nLKwCRhq1M

You have to open it in a new window, I think....

Nice videos! Thank you very much!

Re: CONCERT REPORT: Vienna, Austria - July 27, 2013

Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 3:42 pm
by Doris
Szilvia, I thank you so much for the wonderful videos.
I came straight home from Vienna. And still hovering somewhere over the clouds. It was an absolutely fantastic concert. Leonard, all musicianIs/singers, the audience...
I have no words. Thank you Leonard!
It is so nice to have the possibility to watch these videos again and again, thank you dear Szilvia.

Re: CONCERT REPORT: Vienna, Austria - July 27, 2013

Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 5:02 pm
by sturgess66
http://www.wiener-online.at/2013/07/leo ... th-vienna/
Leonard Cohen's Three-hour "Dance With Vienna."

Three hours avid Leonard Cohen Vienna.
Text: Markus Brandstetter | 28.07.2013 | |

Image

"Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin / Dance me through the panic till I'm Gathered safely in / Lift me like an olive branch, be my homeward dove / Dance me to the end of love". With that song, released in 1984 to "Various Positions", Leonard Cohen opened the evening in the Wiener Stadthalle - the grand old Canadien Errant from the Tower of Song asked to the dance, which was to last three whole hours and Cohen's work from the first album "Songs of Leonard Cohen "(1967) to his late work" Old Ideas "(2012) should include - the sound architecturally more than questionable albums of Sharon Robinson Era (" Ten New Songs "," Dear Heather "), with one exception (" Alexandra Leaving ", sung by Robinson) omitted.

Cohen is 78 years old now, no longer the "foothills of old age", as he once said, but in the middle, the "golden voice" has deepened over the years, has lost nothing of its urgency. After serious financial problems (Cohen was betrayed by his former manager, by an amount in the millions) and a roughly five-year monastic existence in California Zen Monastery Mt Baldy, Cohen since 2008, almost constantly on tour - are converted his songs musically nine members of a band consists of Javier Mas (oud, guitar and various stringed instruments), Mitch Watkins (guitar), Neil Larssen (keyboards, accordion, brass), Alexandru Bublitchi (violin), Rafael Gayol (drums), Sharon Robinson (vocals), Charlie . and Hattie Webb (vocals) and the band leader and bassist Roscoe Beck Cohen gives the band enough space, solo passages are rarely sprawling despite their frequency - in parts, especially when Javier Mas' oud solos musical context but it is running the risk of too culinary and therefore emphasizes dignified forward.

Cohen is best anyway, if he picks up the acoustic guitar and everything else is relatively reduced: such is the legendary and incredibly sad "Chelsea Hotel No.2" one of the highlights of the evening, Cohen breaks his principle "I never discuss my mistresses or tailors "and sings in his description of the (sexual) offensive facts right by him if his openness also regretted song about his brief affair with Janis Joplin. The screens show Cohen aged face, and Cohen comes to the Conclusion: "I do not mean to suggest I did the best loved you / I can not keep track of each fall robin / I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel, that's all . I do not even think of you did often ".

Three hours can Cohen almost nothing to be desired, from the proverbial "Songs of Love and Hate", he lets the hatred originating mainly - this gives the audience great as "Sisters of Mercy", "The Partisan", "Famous Blue Raincoat" , engages himself repeatedly for acoustic guitar. "Hallelujah", now almost a standard of gecovert Songbooks and highly inflationary (Cohen had the privilege Royalites) finds an unhurried place towards the end of the second set. For "Tower of Song" Cohen brings as always, the quasi self-playing Casio out, and happy as ever mischievously about it. When he earns applause at the minimum solo melodic lines, Cohen flirts even more with the audience: "You are really cruel." In "Take This Waltz" is, predictably, frenetically applauded at the mention of Vienna and, unfortunately, clapped a little awkward. For eight encores Cohen takes to the stage, each individual would be perfect as an end, but he always comes back. It is also the most grandiose and self-deprecating "Going Home", "I love to talk to Leonard / He's a sportsman and a shepard / He's a lazy bastard living in a suit". "So Long, Marianne" "First We Take Manhattan" and of course "Closing Time":

"And the whole damn place goes crazy twice / and it's once for the devil and it's once for Christ / but the boss do not like Those dizzy heights / we're busted in the blinding lights of closing time," and as you already believes that the lights actually come on, there's "I Tried To Leave You" and the final song to dance, "Save the Last Dance."

"Sing another song, boys, this one has grown old and bitter," according to Cohen's "Songs of Love and Hate". They have become old, but not aged, Cohen's songs and bitter here is really nothing at all - rather amazingly alive, his "manual for living with defeat".

"I do not know When we'll meet again," Cohen says after a few songs. If it similar to a long life as his Freud Kyozan Joshua aka Sasaki Roshi, the spiritual head of the Mt Baldy monastery to the Cohen took care to be granted, it will not be the last time. "Save the last dance for me," Cohen sings and says goodbye. Let Leonard. For whom else?

Setlist:

Dance Me To The End Of Love
The Future
Bird On A Wire
Everybody Knows
Who By Fire
The Darkness
Amen
Come Healing
Lover Lover Lover
- (Pause) -
Tower of Song
Suzanne
Chelsea Hotel
Sisters Of Mercy
The Partisan
Alexandra Leaving (Sharon Robinson)
I'm Your Man
Hallelujah
Take This Waltz

Addition

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

Photo: Frazer Harrison / Getty Images

Re: CONCERT REPORT: Vienna, Austria - July 27, 2013

Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 9:48 pm
by LC&LC

Re: CONCERT REPORT: Vienna, Austria - July 27, 2013

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 9:28 am
by sturgess66
There are a lot of photos here - http://derstandard.at/1373513954391/Leo ... Stadthalle
Worth a look!

Image

Re: CONCERT REPORT: Vienna, Austria - July 27, 2013

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 9:48 am
by friscogrl
These are great pictures of Leonard. They really capture the emotion he puts into his performance. I think it also helps that they are up close photos of him. Thanks for posting them Linda.

Marsha

Re: CONCERT REPORT: Vienna, Austria - July 27, 2013

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 3:14 pm
by SeventhSon
Being a huge Springsteen fan myself and having seen him 9 times on the Wrecking Ball 2012-2013 tour, getting a different show every evening including two surprise full album performances, I couldn't agree more with what has been said here about Leonard's setlist. But I think this should best be discussed in a seperate topic.

Anyone watns to open it? I'm not sure where to put it :)

Re: CONCERT REPORT: Vienna, Austria - July 27, 2013

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 3:26 pm
by surrender
SeventhSon,
it has been opened 5 months ago, the thread is still alive; a lot has been said already:

viewtopic.php?f=75&t=33576&p=333290&hilit=stale

Re: CONCERT REPORT: Vienna, Austria - July 27, 2013

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 4:17 pm
by SeventhSon
surrender wrote:SeventhSon,
it has been opened 5 months ago, the thread is still alive; a lot has been said already:

viewtopic.php?f=75&t=33576&p=333290&hilit=stale
Ah yes! I must have forgotten. Thank you, I will post something there later. :)

Re: CONCERT REPORT: Vienna, Austria, July 27, 2013

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 12:44 am
by Nanila
Thank you, Szilvia,
I love your playlist!!!
Renate

Re: CONCERT REPORT: Vienna, Austria - July 27, 2013

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 1:07 am
by joyezekiel
friscogrl wrote:These are great pictures of Leonard. They really capture the emotion he puts into his performance. I think it also helps that they are up close photos of him. Thanks for posting them Linda.

Marsha
Agreed! Thank you so much for these gorgeous photographs.

Joy

Re: CONCERT REPORT: Vienna, Austria, July 27, 2013

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 5:07 am
by sturgess66
Video -

More uploaded by Eva Kisgyorgy

Sisters of Mercy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jimigpRM7BI

Suzanne
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLd83fRQiTg


*************

Uploaded by 1966roman1966

The Future (... I don't know when we'll meet again. Nobody ever does know that. But I promise you tonight we'll give you everything we've got.")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8LDqx_YXi0

Everybody Knows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HfXjDbIhVQ

Take This Waltz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc8HfLr2b7k

I'm Your Man (video sticks - but Leonard sings on...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwN-rsaTp8M

Re: CONCERT REPORT: Vienna, Austria, July 27, 2013

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 1:17 pm
by Happy24
I am a bit late, but now I have processed my pictures from Prague and Vienna, so I am finally posting my review. I am posting the review of both concerts into this Vienna thread, co that I can compare them a bit.

First I have to say those were my Leonard Cohen concerts no. 1 and 2, which I think is quite rare on this forum, so here come some thoughts from someone, who has never seen Mr. Cohen before - I missed the 2008 and 2009 concerts in Prague, since I thought the tickets were too expensive and I regretted it ever since. This time I bought the tickets the minute the pre-sale started.

The best thing about seeing someone live for the first time is that feeling „Wow, that is REALLY HIM!“ That never happens again on second, third or tenth concert, and that was my very first thought when Mr. Cohen appeared on stage in Prague. He got a standing ovation right at the beginning and when he started to sing, my first impressions were that the sound was absolutely outstanding and that Leonard’s voice was even deeper and smoother than on the live recordings. Well, his voice is actually exactly the same as on the recordings of course, but the real live experience is much much stronger than listening to any DVD. The sound in the hall was really perfect though. The sound in an arena is always a compromise, sometimes it is acceptable, sometimes horrible, sometimes very good. Mr. Cohen had the best sound I have ever heard in an arena.

As the concert went, it fulfilled all my very high expectations and there were some things that surprised me. I have seen the Live In London and Songs From The Road DVDs many times, but it was right there at the concert that I realised how incredibly good the Webb sisters were. Of course, the DVDs concentrate mostly on Leonard, but at the concert you can concentrate on anyone on the stage as you will and when Come Healing came, I couldn’t believe my ears. It is a nice song on the CD, but the live rendition was absolutely outstanding, one of the finest pieces of music I have ever heard. In one review in one Czech paper, there was writen, that Cohen had the best backing vocalists in the world. Well, I haven’t heard them all, but from those I have heard, they are the best indeed. Needless to say, they are the best looking ones :-)

Now, it is fair to say, that everybody on the stage was really great, Sharon Robinson’s Alexandra Leaving was beautiful.

So after the first set (about 1 hour 5 min.), there was a 20 min. break, then the second set – another hour and then came another big surprise – the rush for the stage. Now, when I read some reviews here, I know it is a common thing at Leonard’s concerts, but I am glad I didn’t read it before, since the fact that I spent the last 45 minutes absolutely unexpectadly 1 meter from the stage, was a great bonus that lifted my mood another great deal, if that was possible. The concert was over too soon it seemed, though incl. The 20 min. break it lasted 3 hours 15 min.!

If I wrote the review right after the concert, I would have probably writen that it was the best show I have ever seen, now in a slight retrospect it would not seem fair. The truth is, that I have seen many concerts and there were some that were truly outstanding. The Leonard Cohen experience stands up there with the absolutely best ones, like Springsteen or McCartney, but I really can not say which one was a bit better than another. And there would be no point in trying to do so. Some concerts are just perfect down to every little detail and this was one of them. As was the next one in Vienna.

So six day passed and I went to Vienna. I almost missed the concert, since for months I thought that it was on Sunday the 28th, while it was actually on Saturday the 27th. I realised my mistake by pure chance in the evening on Friday 26th, which was pretty much the last moment, since it it takes me half a day to get to Vienna. The thought that I could have travelled to Vienna on Sunday, accomodated myself in the hotel and and gone to the hall in the evening only to realise that the concert had been the day before is highly unpleasant :-)

Anyway, while in Prague I had a ticket on the tribune, a very good one, but still rather far, I had a second row in Vienna. On a side, but a great seat really. I sat next to one German member of this forum – Hartmut, if I remember correctly, do I? Was that you – second row, seat n. 4?

The show was similar to the one week before with the exception of one song – Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye in Prague and Save The Last Dance For Me in Vienna. What was different was the audience. The audience in Prague was really good actually, considering that the Czech audience isn’t usually very warm. It was very acceptive and the mood was great, but it was waaay better in Vienna, which showed mainly during the encores.

At that point I still didn’t know that the before-the-encores rush for the stage was a common thing and I was curious whether it would happen again. There was actually a little gathering in front of stage before the second set started and it looked for a moment that there would be a standing in front of the stage for the whole second set, but the security let people to take pictures for about two minutes and then asked them to sit down, which was logical, since it would probably ruin the show for the people in the centre of the first rows. I thought it was actually a nice gesture from the security, that they let those people in front of the stage for a while.

The rush came with the first notes of Take This Waltz, so one song earlier and that was the time when the atmosphere in the hall took off. I ended up even a bit closer than in Prague this time. People sang along, the line „There is a concert hall in Vienna…“ was loudly appreciated as one would expect, but the best thing came during So Long, Marianne – people sang along from the beginning, but with the start of the refrain it sounded as if an incredibly loud chorus was played from some loudspeakers from the back. It took me by surprise and I am sure it did Leonard too. He stopped singing and looked absolutely taken aback. The same happened during the other refrains too, and Leonard obviously enjoyed it and smiled broadly, but the first time he was stunned. I was filming at that moment and I watched it many times. The look on Leonard’s face was priceless. I don’t know, maybe I am just describing something that is common at Cohen’s concerts, I can only compare it with Prague and it didn’t happen there. And it was magic. There were other great moments – during Closing Time for instance, when every line „It’s closing time…“ was followed by loud „No, no, no!“ from the audience to Leonard’s obvious amusement. Again, I have no idea whether it is normal or not, but it didn’t happen in Prague and it was great.

Save The Last Dance For Me...and just like in Prague, after more than 3 hours it was over too soon, and I can only hope that, in a year or two I will have another chance to experience it again. If so, I will be among the first ones to buy tickets again. And if there would be a chance to see the Webb sisters solo, I will be there for sure, I checked the YouTube for some of their solo stuff and it is excellent. Thank you all for two unforgetable nights! I mean everyone on stage and everyone in the audience.

My pictures from Prague:

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And my pictures from Vienna:

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