"Leonard Cohen Live in London" > DVD & 2CD (April 2009)

[phillip]

What an awesome DVD & CD I have loved watching the DVD it was superb am lost for words can anyone help me lol! all I can say it was magical and a lovely momento after seeing him in Manchester and Birmingham last year, now I am waiting to see him again in Liverpool later this year, simply magic

[prufrock79]

Slant review:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/musi ... sp?ID=1704

[John Etherington]

Good review! However, Leonard was not thirty years younger when he released his last live album (even though he was thirty years younger when he recorded "Field Commander Cohen"). The writer has clearly overlooked "Cohen Live" which was released in 1994. Also, Leonard's voice was not necessarily stronger and more powerful when he recorded his early albums.

All good things, John E

[Pete]

I may be wrong but I'm sure I can see Paula on the DVD...after 1000 Kisses Deep there's a rare shot of the crowd where you can actually see faces.
Paula? Is it you a few rows back? Liz and I are not 100% sure.

pete

[meglos2000]

According to the just released BBC UK charts listings, Live In London has debuted at No.19 in the charts!

Excellent news!

[Paula]

Pete I have looked at said spot on the DVD it does look like me. It is not easy to tell even with pause. But I am gonna claim it anyway

[Pete]

Pete I have looked at said spot on the DVD it does look like me. It is not easy to tell even with pause. But I am gonna claim it anyway

That's good enough for me but I can't see your name on the credits in the insert ..I'll pencil your name in on my copy

[John Etherington]

Hi Paula,

Where were you sitting at O2? I was in the centre block row D on the left hand aisle - next to Gina and close to Jarkko and Eija. If you were anywhere in the proximity of Jarkko, I might get my bearings on the DVD!

[Walsh75]

The Detroit Free Press gave the CD four out of four stars today with a glowing review and a nice photo of Leonard that wasn't the album cover and I'm not even sure it was a recent pic. It also plugged the May 9 date at The Fox.

[Paula]

Hi John - I have looked at it a couple of times now and I am pretty sure it is me, well chuffed!!!!

I was (I think) in the third row from the front, Micky-one was in a row in front of me to my left, I was sitting next to Ken near the aisle on the right hand side. I vaguely remember Kim being in the same row and I think Jarkko was in the row behind on the left hand side.

Looking at the faces I can see I can't see any forum members.

Pete you have eagle eyes thank you.

[nerosneptune]

pretty decent review here:

http://spectrumculture.com/2009/04/leon ... ondon.html

[Jim Williams]

Review from Uncut magazine:

When The Songs Of Leonard Cohen arrived in record shops just after Christmas, 1967, its creator was already 33 years old – an unusual age to be releasing a debut album. But the patina of experience was critical to Cohen’s appeal. Here was a singer – no, a poet – who could write about the usual stuff, chiefly girls – well, women – with a rueful and weathered maturity far beyond the range of his younger contemporaries.

It was a good trick then, and it remains so four decades later, as Leonard Cohen continues his extraordinary comeback tour. While the likes of The Rolling Stones tackle the songs of their youth in an absurd if bracing defiance of age, and Bob Dylan and Neil Young often seem to have an ambiguous, sometimes fraught, relationship to their back catalogues, Cohen has no comparable problems. The older he becomes, the better he inhabits many of these uncannily graceful and profound songs.

Consequently, Live In London is much more than a souvenir of a memorable show at the O2 Arena in July 2008. It showcases a (then) 73-year-old singer with still-growing wisdom and an ever-deepening voice, who now brings an even greater gravity to songs that were hardly bubblegum in the first place.

Take “Who By Fire”. It’d be risky to claim that this live reading is a more definitive version than the original on 1974’s New Skin For The Old Ceremony. But the incantatory resonance of Cohen’s baritone, the way it is underpinned so delicately by the female vocals, Javier Mas’ lute-like archilaúd and Neil Larsen’s Hammond B3, make it sound more like sacred music than a folk singer’s appropriation of sacred music, band introductions notwithstanding. An enterprising film director would do well to cast this Cohen as the voice of a god – if Cohen could reconcile the complexities of his own beliefs to accept such a frivolous gig.
Then again, as Live In London proves, Leonard Cohen is a covertly frivolous man. If he has been stereotyped for 20, 30, 40 years as the laureate of misery, these shows have redefined him as more of a droll old charmer, not averse to satirising himself.

“It’s been a long time since I stood on the stage in London,” he intones wryly before “Ain’t No Cure For Love”. “It was about 14 or 15 years ago. I was 60 years old, just a kid with a crazy dream. Since then I’ve taken a lot of Prozac, Paxil, Welbutrin, Effexor, Ritalin, Focalin. I’ve also studied deeply in the philosophies and religions, but cheerfulness kept breaking through.”
He says more or less the same every night, but the crafted wit is well worth repeating. Rehearsal does not preclude warmth, and the three months of preparation that Cohen and the band went through before the tour began last spring – down to the ad libs, perhaps – is one good reason why Live In London has more in common with a measured studio album than most live sets.

Spontaneity isn’t necessary here. Instead, meticulous control is crucial to the potency of these 25 songs, particularly in the marvellous sequence that closes the first half of the concert, running through “Who By Fire” and “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye” to a broadly celestial “Anthem”.
These are not complete reinventions: the musical director, Roscoe Beck, was imbuing Cohen’s songs with the same stately pacing, with similar Mediterranean fringes, as far back as 1988, judging by the Cohen Live album released in 1994. Now, though, there’s a shade more discretion to Bob Metzger’s guitar playing, and fewer cruise liner flourishes from Dino Soldo on the “instruments of wind”. Javier Mas, the Spanish guitarist, is an obvious star, but as the whole band take compact, jewel-like solos during “I Tried To Leave You”, it’s hard to spot a weak link.

Cohen himself, of course, may be more reliable these days, having lost his old habit of drinking three bottles of wine before a show. He has a clutch of relatively new songs, too, with two from 2001’s underrated Ten New Songs included in the London show, plus a stirring recitation of verses from “A Thousand Kisses Deep” that didn’t make the original recording. A meditation on love, memory, mortality and related topics, it’s an apposite highlight, not least when Cohen intones, “I’m still working with the wine, still dancing cheek to cheek/The band is playing ‘Auld Lang Syne’, but the heart will not retreat.”

It captures a man forced back on to the road by financial exigency – back to “Boogie Street”, he might say – only to discover that something else is driving him onwards. Perhaps that something, Cohen realised, is a chance to achieve a resolution of sorts, with both his art and with his fans. An uncommonly thoughtful victory lap, which deserves – and has received – a handsome recorded memorial.

JOHN MULVEY

[table top joe]

Well my DVD finally arrived today,having read most of this thread over the last week or two i was a little nervous about what i would make of it....well,i love it! its a pretty straight forward live DVD and thats fine with me,im not the hardest to please,just point the camera at Lenny and im happy .......it takes me back to last year even more than the album,wonderful stuff


Pretty sure i read somewhere in this thread(or maybe it was another one)the other day about a "best of the tour" album/DVD.....is this just wishful thinking or is something like this planned does anyone know?

[jarkko]

This message comes from Bill Sanders in Los Angeles. He is Ed's brother, and I had the priviledge to meet him in London before the concert last July.

Comments on "Live in London":

I've seen some comments on the DVD--that it's in 4:3 and not up to the
current high-tech, video state of the art.

There is even a very disparaging one-star review on Amazon UK where the
writer cynically supposes that Sony will later release an HD BluRay
version of "Live in London" in a shoddy marketing ploy to sell the
product twice.

That supposition is definitely not true.

Jarkko has already correctly noted that later concerts are being shot in
HD and if all goes well there are plans for a tour video in HD/BluRay
compiled from best performances. This would surely include Famous Blue
Raincoat, Chelsey Hotel and the Partisan. But a lot of things have to
go right for this to ever come out and it's pretty far off in the future
in any event. And it will be a much different video than "Live in London."

"Live in London" is meant to represent the experience of being at one of
this tour's shows from a close-up perspective. This it does. As I
watch it I see many things I missed at the live O2 show (and I was in
the front row). The audio is fantastic, both the mixing and mastering
are first-rate. There are absolutely zero audio overdubs--it's a true
live, one-take recording.

The show is a splendid performance; the best overall performance of the
tour I'm told. (People will think the one they saw is better--but they
don't have the master audio tapes and video to really compare). Leonard
was in particularly fine form and the band and vocalists too. It is
nearly flawless.

The thinking on this went along these lines: this is a fantastic
performance; the audio is exceptional; true enough the video is not
state-of-the-art--it's 4:3 and some will complain; but it can be
released now; and, at the price of a program, we think a lot of people
will want to have this and most everyone will enjoy it tremendously.

I know I'm very happy to have it as a souvenir of the show I saw--whilst
undergoing geographical inconvenience to be there (from L.A). If things
go right and a viable BluRay version materializes it will doubtless be
outstanding and technically superior. Let's all hope we get it. But
"Live in London" does re-create the feel of this wonderful concert and
for that I think it's well worth the 15 dollars US and the time spent to
watch it a few (or many) times.

[MarieM]

Wow, I wish I had a brother who would take up for me like this, especially since everything Bill says is true.

Ten years ago I never would have imagined that Leonard would make another album. A tour? Yeah, right. A tour which earns 5-star reviews everywhere? Well, that was just unimaginable. Never did I think Leonard wasn't capable but just that there were too few of us followers to make it possible.

To me, 20,000 screaming fans is not only special, it is symbolic. Before I put that DVD into my player, I didn't expect to feel Leonard in my living room. I didn't expect to be able to reach out and touch him. I hoped that I would be transported to that day and that I was. I was there among the masses. The DVD does exactly what it sets out to do, reproduce the experience. And that has to include some magic, some tears, some grins and some warts.

Hopefully, the "Leonard in my living room" experience is still to come with the BluRay. I'm still greedy, but that could never replace the gratitude I feel for what we do have.