Old Ideas – Leonard Cohen (Sony)

Leonard Cohen surely had nothing left to prove, but this album, his first for seven years, and self-described as a ‘manual for living with defeat’, emphatically underlines that he remains a vital and unique recording artist.  Old Ideas is delicate, curmudgeonly, wryly humorous, instrumentally organic and instantly gratifying.

That’s a lot of different aspects of distinction and yet they somehow manage to co-exist often with a single song.

Of course the album is sung in a deep ponderous tone that embodies every bit of his 77 years, but it’s an apt voice for a man simultaneously contemplating his mortality and wrestling with his flickering romantic urges as he does on the closer Different Sides, where he croons against the angelic voice of Dana Glover. Soaring high notes were never his long suit anyway. Glover performs another virtual duet with Cohen on Come Healing , another white mans gospel song.

The album opens with Going Home, an insightful letter to himself where he describes his correspondent as ‘a lazy bastard, living in a suit’.  He sings/speaks the words in a voice that is so intimate that he almost disconcertingly present in the room.  Amen is slow and light and it almost evokes the inevitable rise to a celestial plain that it considers.

The highlight is the triumvirate of the elegiac, intimate Show Me The Place, the slinky, seductive groove of Darkness and the stark, emotionally brutal Anyhow.  The former is a hymm-like song that recalls the delivery of Tom Waits, and provides one of the most powerful and yet humble lyrics on the album. Jennifer Warnes makes her only appearance on the album on this track with an incredibly gentle vocal contribution. Darkness is built around a quietly insistent rhythm and perhaps is Cohen’s statement about the financial predicament that ironically re-generated his career. Anyhow is a barroom lament where he pleads, “I know you have to hate me, but could you hate me less”. By the end of the song as he mixes and repeats his pleadings provided more coherently earlier in the song, you actually start to feel sorry for his emotional state.

There’s one school of thought that will suggest that Cohen has simply continued to trade in a very safe commodity, and one that will provide very few surprises, but to me this is hardly a criticism. The surprises are there but they are a matter of degree not magnitude.  A sense of perspective is needed also, something that is often lacking in considerations of Cohen. This is a man in his late 70’s making his first album in over seven years. The sheer quality of these songs is astounding and there are many of these that wouldn’t be out of place on his finest albums. Do they exceed any of those songs in terms of quality? Does it matter? The point of this album is not to compete with himself.

Old Ideas could have been a semi-apologetic parting gesture but it’s actually an unmitigated triumph.

 

New Album for Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen will release a new album in February. Titled Old Ideas it is his first album of new material in eight years and the twelfth studio album of his career.

The ten-track album can be preordered from Cohen’s website, where a stream of first single Show Me The Place, can be found. The album will cap a remarkable re-birth for Cohen who started touring a few years ago, reportedly due to financial necessity, and discovered a huge worldwide audience awaiting his return. The shows have been uniformly outstanding, including two Australian tours. Believe it or not it’s been 44 years since the release of Cohen’s debut album Songs of Leonard Cohen, released in December 1967.

Cohen has been progressing this album for several years, but first publicly described the album earlier this year when accepting an award in Spain.

“As I grew older, I understood that instructions came with this voice. And the instructions were these…Never to lament casually. And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done within the strict confines of dignity and beauty.”

Cohen has worked with Patrick Leonard, one of Los Angeles most respected producers. Leonard also worked with Cohen’s son Adam on his recently released album Like A Man Cohen is joined on his album by some great singers including Sharon Robinson, Jennifer Warnes, Dana Glover and The Webb Sisters (Hattie and Charley Webb, who feature in his touring band). The album will feature cover art and drawings by Cohen himself.

 

Adam Cohen

Adam Cohen is a superior songwriter, an engaging singer and an insightful examiner of the human condition. He’s also Leonard Cohen’s son. Adam Cohen has just released a new album in Australia called Like A Man and it’s very good. It’s also quite a surprise given that around five years ago he gave up on the music business, and on the challenge of stepping out of his fathers shadow. Now re-energized by a series of personal and public events he has come to terms with his place in the family business. It makes for an interesting conversation.

HHMM: Before we get started I wanted to remind you that we had met before. When I was in Los Angeles about a decade ago we had a mutual friend and you very kindly showed us around a few venues, including taking us to see Aimee Mann, at Largo. You were very hospitable.

AC: Oh my goodness that rings a bell! I am so happy I was well behaved. It was an era in which I could well have acted poorly and I’m terribly lucky that you have a generous recollection. So thank you, and nice to speak to you again.

HHMM: Let me congratulate you on the album. It’s just a great record and it feels to me like you have really come to terms with your songs and where you fit in.

AC: I really was a sneaker away from zipping up my bag and calling it quits. So its particularly sweet to be able to say that this is my proudest achievement yet when I really thought that I wasn’t going to get another chance.

HHMM: When we met over a decade ago, I do recall that you seemed like a guy who felt like he had a lot to prove, or a need to move something, whereas this album seem to come from a much more settled place.

AC: My pre-occupation up until very recently was to be successful and to occupy a high and visible post in the music business and participate in it, participate in its glamour and glory and sex and drugs and rock n’ roll. Now my pre-occupation is completely different. It’s much more about wanting to be good and I’m so happy I was given this other chance to record. I was writing my own obituary. I was done.

HHMM: I really like the comment on your website where you explain that you came to the realization that what you are doing is simply going into the family business, which is what a lot of other people have done, and will always do.

AC: It’s really nice to occupy an honorable post in the family business. I walk to work with pride and with a pep in my step. I’ve never felt as happy and as proud to be in the family business. I was performing a kind of contortion act, making music that was so wholly disconnected from the tradition from which I come.  Now, to do it in a way that honors that tradition is deeply gratifying.

HHMM: I really like some of the clear references to songs of your fathers, like on Sweet Dominique, where you refer to “so many kisses deep” and on Beautiful, when you make the reference to “Marianne”. Obviously it is a deliberate thing, but is it something you want people to pick up and appreciate.

AC: Oh, there is a half a dozen of those. They are embedded in there. It was just my way of saying, “fuck it!” This is a record that is essentially a homage to my father and what re-ignites every one of these songs is precisely their connection to an architecture that I grew up with and that is wholly my fathers. So why disguise it? This is my coming out party.

HHMM: The other song that really jumps out at me is What Other Guy, which on one level is a beautiful song of devotion, and on the other is almost creepily obsessive.

AC: I was just trying to be faithful to the photograph that I took in my mind of a person. It started off as an exercise and I just then fell in love with the song and I was very happy to have written that song.

HHMM: Tell me a bit about the contributions of the producer Pat Leonard, and of Don Was who plays upright bass on most of the songs.

AC: I don’t know how to properly convey to you how amazingly happy I am to and how surprised I am at the willingness of these accomplished men to work with me. I was walking through the halls of Hensen Studios and Pat and I bumped into Don. Pat explained to Don what we were about to do and before he even finished the explanation of what we were endeavoring to do, Don literally volunteered to play bass. We didn’t ask him. And he did it gratis! That was what characterizes the entire mood and spirit and flavor of the record. Virtually not a dollar was exchanged. It was all done for the love of music and song and to be a part of the celebration of my family name.

HHMM: You really seem to enjoy getting inside the architecture of relationships in your songs. It’s like you hold a relationship in your hand like a glass prism, and twist it around to see what light reflects from it from different angles.

AC: I don’t feel like I’m in a position to editorialise the songwriting. They are supposed to be able to speak for themselves and labor over them to have them be the best reflection of my abilities that they can be.  That’s pretty much all I can say about my own songwriting. The rest is for you and anybody else who cares to say anything about them.

HHMM: How has having your own son impacted upon your understanding of your place in the world?

AC: There was three things that were really pivotal triggers to me making this record. The first was a kind of disillusion with my own life and career. The second was the inspiration I got from the triumphant return to the stage of my father, which was unexpected. And the third was absolutely the birth of my son and the connection that I felt to my family instantaneously deepening more than I could ever have thought would happen.

HHMM: That whole process of coming to terms with you relationship to the family business – this is probably a strange question – but did you ever discuss than with Jacob Dylan?

AC: I never spoke to Jacob about the phenomenon of being someone’s son. I don’t believe its something that we have to speak about much. One: Our experiences  – not matter how much they outwardly seem to be the same – are not. And Two, when Jacob goes into a booth to do a vocal or a studio to record a song or into a room to write on a page, he’s all alone. No-one is singing it for him, or writing it for him or playing it for him.  It’s just a man, with his demons and whatever tools he has to catch the muse. There’s very little common between two hunters. When it comes to hunting down art, no two hunters are the same.

HHMM: Is there any chance of you coming and playing these songs for us in Australia?

AC: Coming to Australia would be a victory not only personally, because I’ve never made it to Australia, but it would also be an enormous career success because for it to be justifiable to make it all that way it would signify something having gone quite right with my little career. So I hope to come to Australia in the deepest way.

UPDATE

Since this interview dates for Adam Cohen’s first Australian tour have been announced. They are as follows:

Tue 6 Mar
Fly By Night, Perth, WA

Thu 8 Mar
Idolize Spiegeltent
The Garden of Unearthly Delights, Adelaide, SA

Fri 9 Mar
Regal Ballroom, Melbourne, VIC

Tue 13 Mar
The Tivoli, Brisbane, QLD

Wed 14 Mar
The Basement, Sydney, NSW

Bobby Long Interview

Bobby Long is one of the most interesting new songwriters to emerge in recent times.  Along with artists like Joe Pug, previously featured on this site, Long represents a literate, intelligent side to new music that brings it’s appeal back to the simple combination of words and music.

The 25 year old Englishman, who now lives in New York, recently released his debut album A Winter Tale is currently touring Australia, playing at Bluesfest and doing a couple of small solo shows in Melbourne and Sydney. I’d strongly recommend you see him in those intimate venues because he’s not likely to be in small venues for long. I had the chance to chat to Bobby before he opened the show last week for Rodrigo Y Gabriela.

HHMM: I’ve got a thing about listening to debut albums – and I know you had an recording that you sold at shows before A Winters Tale – but I’m treating A Winters Tale as a debut album.  You get that feeling from the album, and debut albums in general, that you have a sense that “Wow, I may never get to do this again, and I’m going to pour everything I’ve got into this album.’

BL: There’s always that insecurity.  Even now A part of the work ethic and the reason you are on tour the whole time and you don’t want to turn anything down is that you want to make use of the situation. There is always that slight worry that this is going to be it, this is going to be my one chance.

HHMM: It’s kind of like when you listen to Greetings From Asbury Park – you can actually hear Springsteen seizing that moment in case he doesn’t get that chance again. As it turns out he got to make another twenty albums!

BL: That’s what I hope happens for me. My whole thing is that this is a career base. That was what was in my mind as well. It wasn’t just about what I got on the page it was about what was the best way of me coming across right now and also how am I going to improve on this for the second one. I wanted to stick to my strengths, which were playing live and working with people who understood me. I also had a mind on the future but, as you said, there was definitely an insecurity that this might be it!

HHMM: One of the things that happen in that situation is that lyrically, everyone tries to get every thought and every idea they’ve ever had somewhere on the album. To your credit you already appear to be a very good self- editor and you managed to avoid cramming the songs so full of ideas that they stop making any sense.

BL: Thanks. Before you put anything out you already pulling at it. It’s funny you should say that because I’m finding that the songs I am writing now are much more concise. That’s a thing of being young – you have so much to say and when you have a platform… I had a tendency when I first started playing that every song was like eight minutes long! There was like this machine gun fire of words and I have learnt to self-edit more and be more concise. A Winter Tale was a big, sprawling opener, but then there’s songs like Who Have You Been Loving and In The Frost I learnt that there was no need for another explanatory verse and that the song was fine without it. That other verse doesn’t need to be there. It’s like a painting where you have a really nice painting and you know you could paint a really perfect chapel in the right corner – but it wont add anything. I did try to do that on the album, but I think I have improved on it since then.

HHMM: On your website there is a number of poems. One I really liked was titled Untitled No.2. , where you manage to get Bach, Van Morrison and Starbucks into one piece of work.  How do you decide when a piece of writing is going to be a song and when it stays being a poem.

BL: That’s a completely different hat.  When I write songs, I write songs. I have a tendency not to write lyrics unless the guitar is in my hand. When I do the poetry thing I’m aware that that is what I am doing right now and there is a real separation, and they are two completely different things.  At the moment I really into the poetry thing and I really want to explore that. I was doing some writing today and music is not even in my head.

HHMM: The thing I distinguished between the poems and the songs is that the songs seem to be more about putting the listener in a time and place, whereas the poems are very much about the here and now.

BL: Yeah, the poem thing is much more diary-like and the song is a transportation thing. I’m much more in love with the music side and much more critical of myself, whereas the poetry thing is much more personal and how I feel on a day and I write it more ‘blah, blah, blah…’ (indicates a spilling out motion). That poem you mentioned before I wrote like that, (snaps finger) and I had no qualms putting it up straight away. With a song there’s a lot more work ethic involved in that, before it gets to an audience.

HHMM: There seems to be an emergence of a whole new group of songwriters, people who are not afraid to admit that they have been to school and had studied writing or art. What do you feel that you gained from having a formal education?

BL: My education was really weird, because I did fucking awful at school! At the age of 15 you can make the choice about whether you want to go to 6^th Form college or not. You needed to get five C’s to go on to do A Levels and go to University. I got two C’s. But I was allowed in because I was a quiet kid who didn’t bother anyone and I did acting and art and music.  They obviously thought I had something.  I went to a very normal school, I didn’t go to a private school. I learned far more from self-education than I did from going to school. The books I read weren’t the books I was reading at school. I enjoyed Shakespeare and Brave New World and stuff like that at school though. I definitely benefited from education from the point of view of keeping me in one place and keeping me focused and not making me go out and do loads of drugs or drinking , but my education thing didn’t have a huge effect on what I’m doing now. But it helped me to be surrounded by a bunch of people who went to school and being in that environment. You hang around with a bunch of drunks then you become a drunk. You hang around with a bunch of kids who read, then you are going to pick up a book. That had a big effect.

HHMM:  With people like Joe Pug and yourself there almost seems to have been ten years of music that you have chosen to ignore and that’s the ten years between when you where say 10 and 20, which is normally the most impressionable years. Are you conscious of that?

BL: See, I love Radiohead, and I loved Oasis when they first came out, but I was like seven or eight then. It’s not like they inspired me to pick up a guitar or anything, but I though they were great. But I think you are right. Jeff Buckley and Elliot Smith I love, but Jeff Buckley died when I was like thirteen, so you are right. When I was in London when I was at University, there was a big thing for indie music that was like boy bands and leather jackets, and I didn’t want to hear it at all.  I couldn’t associate with any of that stuff.

HHMM: Do you think that the emergence of people like yourself is almost like a reaction to the era of Idol and X Factor, when music was populated by manufactured pop stars.

BL: I don’t think it’s a response but I remember when I was young thinking that all I was hearing was bad, fucking dance music.  But I think you are right that people are bored with this pre-packaged, compressed, digital stuff. But see, my girlfriend loves X-Factor and American Idol and I’ll watch it with her. I’m not going to vote or anything, but it doesn’t make me want to write a song to counter-act it. It’s just this whole other thing. It’s like watching a soap opera, and these people aren’t really affecting me and what I do. But hopefully it might make people think that music is cool, and then after a little while they might realize that it doesn’t have to be this glamourized television stuff, but music is actually something that real people do every day.

HHMM:  You actually wrote a thesis on the Social Impact of American Folk Music. I’ve read that you mainly did that as a means to get your degree, but having said that you probably worked out pretty quickly that American folk music consisted of more than Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Do you consider some of your influences like Leonard Cohan and Neil Young and The Band as folk music?

BL: Oh yeah, definitely influenced. I don’t even think that what I do is all that folky when you put it in with people like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. Folk music really is like a form of documentation of and a voice of social discontent and I’m not really that. And I’m not making political comment.  But I love those three artists and they are definitely carrying that torch on and so I think that’s a natural progression from people listening to Woody Guthrie and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and early Dylan. But The Band wrote a lot about Civil War didn’t they?

HHMM: To me, by that definition, Ray Davies is a folk artist.

BL: Ray Davies is like one of the best writers of social observation, as is Randy Newman. Randy Newman is fucking amazing. Ray Davies, for English life, there is not one  better writer out there for that. Stevie Marriott was good too with the Small Faces. But Ray Davies is killer. You hear a song and it sounds like England, and it takes you back and you recognize stuff.

HHMM: Do you have any idea how cool it is for someone my age to be talking to a guy who is 25, about Ray Davies and Randy Newman, and The Band and Leonard Cohen.

BL: The thing is, that I just think it is good music and it’s worth talking about it. I was also kind of force –fed it by my dad. When we were in the car and he’d be playing Dylan and The Beatles. Lucky I fell in love with it!

HHMM: One thing you have inherited from the folk tradition is that troubadour spirit of getting out and playing a lot and taking your music to people in that way.

BL: I did another interview today when the guy said, ‘Oh you play so much’, and I thought it was just normal.  That thing of getting out and playing every night is just the way to do it. I love the idea of Bleeker St in the 60’s where  you’d have Dylan playing every night and The Beatles in Hamburg would play four shows a night.

HHMM: The difference now is that you can travel rom town to town but the internet has got there before you, so there is usually some sort of an audience already waiting

BL: It is important but it can be frustrating from time to time too because you really have to fight to maintain any kind of mystery. You have to isolate yourself from it and at the same time you use it. I have a Twitter account but I don’t put anything personal on it. So I tell people about shows and stuff. It’s not flyers and magazines anymore, it’s Twitter.  It’s weird to do a show and then there are videos on You Tube the next day from five different angles! I might say something on stage and if I say it again a few nights later in a different town there will be someone who says, ‘you already said that’. So there is good and bad elements to it.

Leonard Cohen at Hanging Rock

How’s this for a very special, once in a lifetime, concert experience – the legendary and incomparable Leonard Cohen performing live at the iconic and beautiful Hanging Rock in Woodend, Victoria.

For one night only Leonard Cohen will perform under the stars at Hanging Rock on Saturday 20 November. In addition to Leonard Cohen the concert will also feature three of Australia’s leading artists – Paul Kelly, Clare Bowditch and Dan Sultan.

The Leonard Cohen date will be the first in a special series of concerts at Hanging Rock, which promoter Michael Gudinski has secured approval for.

Michael Gudinski said; “Hanging Rock and the Macedon Ranges have always been a very special place for me personally as I have a second home up there. Holding a concert at Hanging Rock has been something I’ve been working towards for years and I’m thrilled that we have secured approval for the series. It is fitting that the first concert we’re holding there is with Leonard Cohen, an artist as iconic as the location itself.”

In 2009 Leonard Cohen left reviewers and fans in awe of his phenomenal performances. His return in 2010 is set to be even more special, with the Hanging Rock concert the only outdoor performance of his fourteen date tour of Australia and New Zealand.

Paul Kelly’s lyrical musings are a perfect fit for the pensive serenity of Hanging Rock. The revered artist will reprise his critically acclaimed special guest role from Leonard’s 2009 tour, this time appearing with his full band.

Following the success of her fourth release, ARIA Top 10 album Modern Day Addiction, Clare Bowditch’s bright melodies and irresistible charm are sure to please whilst soulful rocker Dan Sultan’s smooth vocals and rousing riffs will fill the air as he serenades all in attendance at this remarkable event.

Tickets to Leonard Cohen at Hanging Rock with very special guests Paul Kelly, Clare Bowditch and Dan Sultan go on sale on Monday 4 October.

SATURDAY 20 NOVEMBER – HANGING ROCK, WOODEND

TICKETMASTER 136 100 or www.ticketmaster.com.au

PRE-SALE TICKETS VIA FRONTIERTOURING.COM WED 29 SEP NOON AEST – THU 30 SEP NOON AEST

GENERAL PUBLIC TICKETS ON SALE MONDAY 4 OCTOBER 9AM AEDT

Leonard Cohen Returns-Hallelujah!

Early last year audiences across Australia and New Zealand were privileged to experience the incomparable live talents of Leonard Cohen. Rapturous reviews followed, with many critics calling the shows the best they have ever seen.

The tour went on to win the Helpmann Award for the Best International Concert in 2009. Those lucky enough to be in attendance at the concerts described them in glowing and effusive terms, earning the envy of those who had missed out on what many speculated would be the last opportunity to see Leonard Cohen on our shores.

The wonderful news is that Leonard Cohen has agreed to return – with his amazing nine piece band and backing singers – to Australia and New Zealand for an encore series of concerts in October and November 2010.

Those unfortunate enough to have missed out on Leonard’s last tour will now have the opportunity to experience firsthand the phenomenal live performance that had reviewers in raptures.

Tickets are on sale from Thursday 3 June.

Oct 29, 2010 – Vector Arena, Auckland

Oct 31, 2010  – TSB Bank Arena, Wellington

Nov 3, 2010 – Westpac Arena, Christchurch

Nov 6, 2010 – Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Brisbane

Nov 8, 2010 – Acer Arena, Sydney

Nov 12, 2010 – Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne

Nov 15, 2010 – Derwent Entertainment Centre, Tasmania

Nov 18, 2010 – Adelaide Entertainment Centre, Adelaide

Nov 24, 2010 -  M E Bank Stadium, Perth

For those who missed it here is my review from Cohen’s extraordinary last tour.

Leonard Cohen is about as enigmatic an artist as you will find on the world concert circuit. The fact that at age 74 that he is on the world concert circuit is in itself a mystery.

Fated by a suddenly revealed financial necessity to return to touring after an absence of around 15 years he has found some of the biggest and most appreciative audiences of his career. In his hiatus he spent over half those years living as a Buddist monk probably a pursuit as far from touring concert artist as it is possible to get.

A life of extremes indeed.

Promoter Mick Newton took to the stage at the end of Paul Kelly’s set and announced a “change of schedule”. With a septuagenarian headline act that didn’t bode well. The relief was palpable when he explained that Cohen would do two sets – a one hour opening set in the daylight and then another couple of hours as the sun went down over the Rochford Winery.

Cohen entered the stage unannounced and immediately enticed the crowd to the palm of his hand. Looking dapper in dark suit, vest, bolero tie and fedora, and surrounded by a band dressed in variations on this theme, Cohen looked like a cross between an aging Atlantic City mobster and Hugh Hefner.

He opened with Dance Me To The End Of Love just as he did on the 1994 Cohen Live album, an album pieced together by Columbia after he entered the monastery.

His band swings and grooves but with the dignity and earnestness of a New Orleans funeral procession crossed with a house band at a bar mitzvah. It’s apparent that this is going to be fun, but serious fun. Cohen is gentlemanly and respectful. He doffs his hat to the audience, he focuses intently on each musician as they take their moments and he gazes almost reverently at the trio of angelic voiced backing singers. Rumours of the death of this ladies man have been greatly exaggerated. It would seem that age hath not wearied his eye or appreciation of the female of the species.

The first set leaves you wondering what could possibly be left for the second. Before the sun has even gone down we get to hear Bird On A Wire, the incomparable Everybody Knows, My Secret Life, the exhilarating Who By Fire and Chelsea Hotel (where he delivers the songs graphic content so convincingly that makes you wonder if he can really be 74 years old).

It’s towards the end of this set that he delivers a well rehearsed line about it being 14 years since he last toured back when he was a 60 year old, “just a kid with a crazy dream”. He talks about his use of anti-depressants (comically listed the various pharmaceuticals by name) and states “I also indulged in the various religions and philosophies. But cheerfulness kept breaking through”.

They are well rehearsed lines , one and all, but they lose nothing in the delivery.

In a moment of strange, but endearing playfulness he then literally skips off the stage! Leonard Cohen skips!

Cohen returns with a scarf looking every inch the New York Upper Westside gentleman in October just as the winter approaches. The first song of the second set is Tower Of Song, a composition performed with aplomb by Nick Cave on the I’m Your Man tribute album. The conclusion of this song also provides us with a funny moment as Cohen hams up a moment of revelation and enlightenment by revealing the answer to the mystery of life is…. “ doo dum dum dum, do dum dum”.

I think he was joking but perhaps….

The second half went from strength to strength from here. Suzanne, Boogie St (one of many several collaborations with Sharon Robinson), an extraordinary and defining version of Hallelujah which was followed by the electrifying I’m Your Man – by this stage for most of the audience the evening had gone from concert to religious experience. The spoken word performance of A Thousand Kisses Deep was received with “pin drop” reverence.

The encore was simply a celebration. Upping the tempo a little Cohen and his sublime band moved through So Long Marianne, a very funky take on First We Take Manhattan and the seductive Famous Blue Raincoat.

He virtually hands If It Be Your Will over to the Webb Sisters and Cohen becomes a another transfixed audience member as the sirens weave their spell.

Each band member has their moment in the spotlight and each of them take it with grace and taste. They are all great contributors to a greater whole, but special mention could be reserved for the stylish Javier Mas playing guitar and mandolin and multi instrumentalist Dino Soldo whose contributions particularly with the EWI are of vital importance.

So many great songs, so much great musicianship but the stand out fact remains that the man at the centre of it delivering the powerful and seductive vocal performance is approaching his 75th birthday.

It would appear that the mid/late career “time out” that Cohen experienced has been beneficial. In the same way that Brian Wilson’s shows having returned from a performing exile were revelations Cohen seems to be filled with the joy and pride of being appreciated the way this audience does appreciate him.

This was a special night.

Coachella Names A Great Line-Up

The Coachella Festival is one of the great music festivals of the world. Held in Indio, California which is about 150 miles out of Los Angeles Coachella has always set the standard when it comes to combining hot new acts with some well selected old timers.

The 2009 instalment is no exception. Its held over three days April 17-19.

Some of the older acts in this years line-up include Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney, Morrissey, Henry Rollins, Bob Mould, Perry Farrell, The Cure, X, Booker T and Michael Franti & Spearhead. They are joined by a host of younger acts including a couple that this website really likes The Hold Steady and The Gaslight Anthem.