I was in Kilmainham for the "first" concert in 2008, it was indeed "one of the most defining nights of live music" ever, anywhere
I wonder if we can recapture the moment again in 2012
.Abbreviated extract from Irish Daily Mail article -
Published 31st January 2012.
" LOVE YOU, LEONARD !"
by Roslyn Dee.
IT WAS one of the most defining nights of live music in Dublin. Ever. Leonard Cohen, outdoors, on a June evening, in the wonderful setting of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. On the Friday night.
You had to have been there on the Friday night, the night that spawned all the legendary stories of a truly magical concert experience, over three and a half years ago now.
The Saturday was terrific as well, by all accounts, but not quite as memorable - it rained. It was different and it just wasn't THE definitive performance.
For us Friday-nighters, however, it was perfection, sheer, beautiful, joy-to-be-alive perfection. One of those moments in your life frozen in time, never to be forgotten, and made all the more special because it was the first night of the master's return to Irish shores after a 20-year absence.
We sat there, my husband and myself, and we ate awful hotdogs and sipped overpriced champagne from plastic cups, and we met people we hadn't seen in years, and we watched sixtysomething year old couples, eyes closed, on their feet and dancing together to the music, and we willed Leonard to sing more and more, and more.
And in the dying light of a June evening, we all listened, spellbound, as darkness gradually crept up and enveloped us, everyone in the audience totally in thrall to the man with the velvet voice. And we felt lucky to be there, lucky to be alive.
Yes, it really was that special.
DID you see Leonard Cohen at the Royal Hospital ? , people still ask when his name crops up in dinner-party conversation, and you nod and say that you did .
"Ah but were you there on the Friday night ?, they then enquire.
And you nod again and they smile and you just don't need to talk about it any more, don't try to reminisce over what he played that night and what he didn't.
The memory is so vivid that words are simply redundant.
I came to Leonard relatively late, was never that sold on him when I was a teenager and an early twentysomething. Didn't really "get" him, I suppose.
But just because you fall in love late, doesn't mean you don't fall hard.
And so it was that in 1988, when I was pregnant, this same friend ( a lawyer in Belfast by then ) phoned me to say that Leonard Cohen was coming to Dublin, that she had tickets, that her husband wouldn't be seen dead going to the concert with her but if she came down for the night, would I come ?.
I would. I did.
And I fell in love - with the songs and with the timeless elegance, that laid-back sex appeal and the lyrical intensity of the man and his music.
The National Stadium was a far from glamorous venue in those days ; built in 1939, yet it was a place that had an intimacy about it that was perfect for Leonard Cohen. His I'm Your Man album had been released earlier that year and we all sang along, delighted to be in the presence of such greatness.
At one point during the concert, my friend grabbed my arm.
"I know ! " she exclaimed, indicating my with-child state, "if it's a boy, you should call him Leonard".
Well it was a boy but no, I didn't call him Leonard.
Give the boy a break.
There will only ever be one Leonard, after all.
(Roslyn then goes on to review "Old Ideas").
~~ now for the dates
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