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Location, location … Leonard Cohen once performed in an asylum
Where's the strangest place you've been to watch a gig?
Readers share stories about unusual locations for concerts
Earlier this week we asked for your stories about the most unusual locations in which you've seen musicians perform. Here are some of our favourites. If you've attended any strangely located concerts, let us know in the thread below.
[See link for complete article - other unusual locations ]
An 'obscure centre of extreme unhappiness'
Leonard Cohen in 1970 and his band doing a warm-up gig for their Isle of Wight festival appearance.
Not a small club, as one might have expected, but in the shabby hall of an old-school asylum outside London.
I'd been a huge fan of Cohen since the first album and, while on a personal journey to investigate madness, worked as a student nurse in the asylum.
The news that he was to play a concert in this obscure centre of extreme unhappiness, where I was working, was frankly unbelievable to me.
When I'd recovered from the shock, I did fear that the author of the undeniably bleak vision of those first two albums might not be a perfect fit for the environment he was to play in.
I need not have worried.
Cohen was not "me big star, you listen and shut up" – he took one look at the unpromising distracted audience, none of whom had a clue of his status and launched into an impromptu hoe-down style of set with himself as the caller.
I can't say that he took all of the 200 or so attendees out of their mental prisons but a significant number got into in it in a big way. He brought some joy into a place of intense misery. I was profoundly moved by his willingness to subsume his ego and his courage in choosing to play such a difficult gig.
Heliconius
