https://www.worcestermag.com/story/ente ... 733582007/
“The music continued, long after the applause had died and house lights were raised,” wrote Harvey Klinger.
55 years ago today (on Oct. 17, 1970), Leonard Cohen gave a “magnetic” performance to a packed afternoon crowd at Clark University. It was the first and only time he performed in Worcester.
“During every one of his songs, the audience was silent, making it hard to believe that there were more than 800 people, including those in the aisles and leaning against walls, crammed into Atwood Hall,” Klinger wrote in the Clark University newspaper, The Scarlet. “But as soon as a song was finished, the silence erupted into thunderous applause.”
For more than two hours, the then 36-year-old singer-poet — who would end up belonging in the class with Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen as the most important pop lyricists to emerge in the latter part of the 20th century — sang, drank and “kibbitzed” with his audience, Klinger reported.
“Cohen’s performance was touched with moments of great melancholy, satire, humor and hope,” according to the reviewer.
When Cohen played Clark, he had only two albums out, 1967’s “Songs of Leonard Cohen” and 1969’s “Songs from a Room.”
Songs Cohen performed at Clark included “So Long, Marianne,” “Joan of Arc” and the closer, “Please Don’t Pass Me By (A Disgrace),” which concluded with Cohen’s asking the audience to join him on stage.
“Needless to say, there was a mass exodus,” Klinger concluded.
“Cohen is a sensitive singer,” Klinger wrote. “If a song doesn’t feel right to him, he stops, something unheard of to most performers. He told me that every song brings back memories to him, and if they be ones which he wants to repress at the time, he drops the song and begins another.”
After the show, the collegiate scribe met the Canadian songwriter.
“Our conversation was extremely informal, no pens or pads on my part, and Cohen offered me his bottle of cognac while we spoke,” Klinger wrote.
Cohen said he thought the Clark University show was one of the group’s best concerts (up to that point), remarking that the audience was terrific.
“I don’t expect anything from audience when I begin a concert. I have to give myself to them and know that I’ve reached them,” Cohen said. “The reason why colleges are good for concerts is that everyone is ‘mobilized.’ The people are together.”
Cohen died Nov. 7, 2016 at the age of 82.
And a nod to Joe Way, for his 55 years anniversary at attending LC's Concert 13 days later on 30th October 1970 at Madison, Wisconsin..... and all what that entails.
