richardrj wrote:Let's hope he doesn't spend too much time behind that keyboard. In 1988 and 1993 'Tower of Song' was the only song performed on keyboards, the rest were all on guitar. I suspect that advancing age makes playing the guitar more difficult. A Cohen show performed mainly on keyboards, drawing heavily on songs from the last few albums, would be something of a disappointment to me.
i don't know if many people remember the audience reactions to
tower of song on the '88 tour, but they were more than a tad luke warm, especially from
some of the grey-haired fans. by the '93 tour things had changed though, and
tower of song went down a storm and always got a few whoops and whistles from the crowd when leonard sang "i was born with the gift of a golden voice"
brian eno once said in an interview that people who grew up listening to music before synthesizers, sequencers, drum machines and sampling were invented, cannot help but visualise musicians playing instruments when they listen to music, whereas younger people just visualise sound coming out of speakers
i dunno, but maybe that's why
tower of song received such a luke warm reaction in '88 from
some of leonard's older fans who had probably listened to the record and pictured someone on percussion, and then been surprised at the concert to see there wasn't a drummer, just a drum machine!
i have to say it never bothered me, and i'm hoping leonard features a LOT of songs from his recent albums -
a thousand kisses deep will be one of the stand-out songs on the tour methinks
