CONCERT REPORTS: Ghent, Aug 12, 14, 15, 17 & 18

[musicmania]

Thanks Wybe, I enjoyed your picture show as always. awaythelads, your photos are outstanding, I want your camera!!

[Stamatina]

My picture show from Gent is ready, you find it here:

Picture show Gent 2012

2012-08-25_202606.jpg

Enjoy,
Wybe and Willy

Wijbe, thank you very much for this, I loved it.
Especially the photo at 01:17. Thanks so much for that one.

[Doris]

Thank you all again for your photos and videos. It´s so great to have the opportunity to look at them all.
Awaythelads, your close-up photos are soo beautiful, many thanks for sharing.

[majmunka]

Dear friends,

as many of you in Ghent asked me to do it, I posted the "How to make your own band bracelet" instructions here:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=32639

I hope you can understand my English and make your bracelets succesfully

Eva

[joyezekiel]

Well.... as someone else here said, there's not much else to add! Thanks to everyone who's contributed such moving reports (Rachel - you brought tears to my eyes again!), photos, and videos. The opening concerts were indeed amazing, and it seems as if Leonard is gaining energy and inspiration as this wonderful tour progresses. I just can't wait for my next experience.

A special thank you to Maarten for organizing the meetups and the "goodie bags". You worked so hard for us all and it paid off beautifully....... I haven't stayed up so late since Las Vegas!!

Joy

[glaux]

There are two more videos from the first part of the concert on August 17, posted by glauxath

Going home:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtGaN5No ... ure=vmdshb

Banjo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lavIIw-9 ... ure=vmdshb

[sebmelmoth2003]

tim de lisle reviews concert in the mail on sunday :

When Leonard Cohen last set off on a world tour, in 2008, he was 73, he had been off the road for 15 years and he was a superstar only in his native Canada and Norway. By the end of the tour, two years later, he was transformed from a cult figure to an all-time great.

Now, after going home to Los Angeles to record a fine new album, he is on the road again. This could be the difficult second lap of honour.

The last tour began cautiously with 18 nights in rural Canada. This one, which comes to London on September 8 and 9, starts with five shows in Ghent, a serene Flemish city of cobbles, churches, bikes and boat trips.

A temporary arena stands in an ancient square, much like the Olympic beach volleyball on Horse Guards Parade. The crowd of 5,000, basking in a blazing evening, ranges from grandfathers in checked shirts to students in denim shorts.

Cohen, a grandfather himself, is now 77, the age Elvis would be if he had lived. He trots on at the beginning and skips off at the end. He has defied the past few years by taking up Pilates and giving up smoking and drinking. (He says he’ll resume smoking at 80.) It probably helps that his mentor, Roshi, head of the Buddhist monastery in LA where Cohen used to live, is going strong at 105.

The tour, like the new album, is entitled Old Ideas. Cohen could hardly make this show better than the last one, so he has made it longer: it stretches from 8pm until midnight, with an interval. He uses the extra time to include six tracks from Old Ideas. Songs such as Amen and Going Home, bluesy and simple enough to work on first hearing, slot in smoothly next to classics such as Everybody Knows and Who By Fire. He also finds room for more songs from The Future (1992). Witty, hardhitting and lethally prescient, The Future now stands as tall as its more famous predecessor, I’m Your Man.

As a showman, Cohen has three trademarks: his hat, his knees and his manners. His black fedora comes off only when he feels the urge to doff it to the crowd or his backing singers. He may be the pop world’s greatest old doffer.

His knees come into play when he sinks to them. He kneels either towards an amp, possibly to read lyrics off an autocue, or to the guitarist Javier Mas and his mysterious arsenal of instruments.
As in 2008, the band, put together by Roscoe Beck, conjures up a warm folk-soul sound that cleverly unites the two main strands of Cohen’s oeuvre, acoustic ballads and tinkly synth-pop, as well as nodding to his Yiddish roots.

Cohen’s manners, as ever, are those of a ‘parfit gentil knight’ with a wicked gleam in his eye.

He thanks his crew by name; he pays lavish tribute to each musician, twice; and he thanks the crowd with a modesty that is beyond most big names.

‘We’re very aware of the distances travelled, the finances compromised,’ he tells the fans. Well, yes and no. The best seats were £69 (€88): Madonna charges twice that.

The courtliness has always been partly a cover for something more salacious. On one new song, Darkness, Cohen’s great adenoidal rumble has an unabashed whiff of dirty old man.

By the end of the last tour, women were throwing their underwear at him, confirming his place in the scheme of things, halfway from Tom Jones to Federico Garcia Lorca.

Take This Waltz, adapted from Lorca and now the title of an acclaimed film, stands out here. So do Waiting For The Miracle, with its swampy ruminations; Hallelujah, with its gravity and grit; Bird On A Wire, reborn as a country-soul ballad, almost a Ray Charles song; not to mention the gorgeous Suzanne, the stately Anthem, the touching Tower Of Song.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_de_Lisle

[yoeri]

Report of someone who went to a concert in Belgium in 2008, 2009, 2010 and now recently in august 2012. Not a fan in 2008, now one of the many. Favourite concert of him: in 2010, when he watched from a tree to the concert in Ghent.

Fighting against the tears:
http://focus.knack.be/entertainment/muz ... 893908.htm

[Ron1984]

Not sure if I'm late to the party here, but I just noticed the 15th and 17th shows are up on Dime! ^_^
Complete shows, audio only.

Keeping my fingers crossed that the show from the 12th will pop up too.

[cohenadmirer]

Not sure if I'm late to the party here, but I just noticed the 15th and 17th shows are up on Dime! ^_^
Complete shows, audio only.

Keeping my fingers crossed that the show from the 12th will pop up too.

I have a good quality recording of the whole of the first show , and i know there are others too. i don't really know how to put on dime or other sites but will look into it

[Päivi from Finland]

Dear Sturgess66!!!

I just now noticed Your lovely picture where a small boy was asking a signature from Cohen! Lovely, absolutely lovely!! One of the best pictures!!! Thank You for that innosence!! Beautyful picture!!! And always younger and younger people are interested in Cohen's lovely music!!!!

Päivi

[codiug]

I made a playlist called "Leonard Cohen Gent 14-08-2012 selection". In it I've put de best video's I found on youtube of this concert.
But I am still missing the following songs of that day: Dance me to the end of love, The Future, Darkness, Come Healing, Coming back to you and Take this Walz. If anyone has any recordings of the missing songs, please put them on you tube. I would be very grateful.

[quetzalcoatl80]

Having looked at the series of photos (of august 12 th) taken by Jarrkko? I noticed a funny detail.
On certain photos of the souncheck, we see that Léonard had settled down his nose a 20 euros bill (doubtless to protect it from the sun)
Simple coquetry or humor?
Had anybody noticed it before me?

[sturgess66]

I think this video belongs here -

Uploaded by Marco van Bergen - Thanks!

It is a video of Leonard's blessings to the audience at the end of the show -

Gracious Lenny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGXA0OXZLto

[lizzytysh]

This is what I always pray for at the closure of Leonard's concerts.
It is always so soothing to my heart to hear him give these blessings,
especially the one of blessings finding us in our solitude.
I've been looking for other examples of these blessings, and came across this.

I was so grateful to finally hear them in Europe... the same as I was so grateful to finally hear A Thousand Kisses Deep in Austin.

Thank you SO much sturgess/Linda for all the linking that you do for us on these many threads regarding Leonard's performances.
You literally set the stage for all the reports, bringing extra measures of appreciation for those who attended and those who didn't,
as well as anticipation, beforehand, for what is come for those planning to attend the particular venues.

There used to be someone active here, name of Anne, who would provide various links, and it was always good to have that extra information.

The time you take to post the photos and links are very appreciated!


~ Lizzy