HALLELUJAH IT'S COHEN.
Lissadell House Concert will be a spiritual experience for veteran singer Leonard ..and his fans.
Anyone who managed to make it to Leonard Cohen's shows at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham a couple of years ago will know that seeing the great man in the great outdoors is akin to a religious experience.
So when he plays Lissadell House, about which his great hero WB Yeats wrote so often, it could veer to the transcendental.
And at 75 Cohen said he is grateful for the reception his return to the road has been given - even if his hand was forced by money mismanagement.
He explained "The response has been very, very, very, hospitable, and it's been a generally very nourishing experience.
We've been all over the world and you know, one is never sure that it's going to work again. You're never sure from concert to concert, actually, because there's some part of it you don't command."
Of course, his songs have been covered by many and Cohen said it is a result of his lack of attention to detail.
He said : My sense of ownership with these things is very weak. It's not the result of spiritual discipline it's always been that way. My sense of proprietorship has been so weak that actually I didn't pay attention and I lost the copyrights on a lot of the songs".
Cohen has hinted that there might also be a move towards new material in the sets at Lissadell.
He said ; "The clear sense that you know you're in the homeward stretch is a very compelling component in writing. A lot of other things fall away that you hope would satisfy you like human life, and your own work, because everything else somehow has failed.
I'm speaking not just for myself. Somehow, just in the nature of things, you know, the disappointments accumulate, and the obstacles multiply and you sense the destruction of your body, and your mind, and you feel here is the last arena, "arena" is too big, the last boxing ring, or the last Ouija board, where you can examine some of the ideas that have intrigued you. That have seized you really". ......
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Hope that changes for Saturday!