REVIEW:

Leonard Cohen calls down angels in the palace of Caesar

Friday, Nov. 13, 2009 | 2:55 p.m.

Chris Morris

Dance Me To The End Of Love
The Future
Ain't No Cure For Love
Bird On The Wire
Everybody Knows
In My Secret Life
Who By Fire
Chelsea Hotel No. 2
Waiting For The Miracle
Anthem
INTERMISSION
Tower Of Song
Suzanne
Sisters of Mercy
The Gypsy's Wife
The Other Blues Song
The Darkness
The Partisan
Boogie Street (Sharon Robinson solo)
Hallelujah
I'm Your Man
A Thousand Kisses Deep (spoken)
Take This Waltz
ENCORE
So Long, Marianne
First We Take Manhattan
Famous Blue Raincoat
If It Be Your Will (featuring the Webb Sisters)
Closing Time
I Tried To Leave You

If heaven has a house band, you can be sure Leonard Cohen will lead it.

But heaven will have to wait.

The 75-year-old poet laureate of women, wine and song performed an unlikely Las Vegas miracle Thursday night, turning The Colosseum at Caesars Palace into a sacred temple, with his songs of love, loss and longing serving as soundtrack to some sort of spiritual celebration.

Three songs into the show, Cohen sang that he had heard angels declare: "Ain't no cure for love." As light burned through the stage's flowing white curtain, I was not only willing to believe him -- I was hearing them myself. Ask anyone in the house. It was that kind of night.

Cohen, dressed in a sharp suit befitting a gangster, put in a Springsteen-worthy performance, playing for more than three hours, with a 25-minute break between sets. Shortly after 8 p.m., he bounded onto the stage, doffed his fedora to the audience and launched into "Dance Me To The End Of Love," kneeling before guitarist Javier Mas for a pseudo serenade. A few minutes later, during "The Future," Cohen tapped his toes, locked his knees together and executed what looked like a brief moonwalk.

A superb nine-piece band, led by bassist Roscoe Beck and including drummer Rafael Gayol, guitarists Mas and Bob Metzger, reed player Dino Soldo and organist Neil Larsen, provided a canvas for Cohen to paint his words upon.

"We've played some unlikely places, and I don't know when we'll pass through this way again," Cohen told the crowd. "But it is our intention to give you everything we have tonight."

That was 22 songs over two sets and a three-part, six-song encore, encompassing, as Cohen once put it, everything from "the latest hit to the wisdom of old." After a 15-year hiatus, Cohen clearly enjoyed being back in the spotlight, clenching his fist to his chest as he sang, "take one last look at this sacred heart before it blows" in "Everybody Knows."

Visibly looser in the second set, he donned an acoustic guitar and played two new songs, one of which could hint at the trouble that spurred his surprise world tour.

In 2005, he sued his former manager and lover, alleging she had misappropriated millions from his retirement fund. In the bluesy "The Darkness," Cohen sings:

"I should have seen the darkness It was right behind your eyes All those pools so deep and heartless I just had to take a dive Yeah but winning you was easy But the darkness was the price."

Still, the mood in the room was anything but dark. Cohen and the band were often bathed in white light, offering exultations to the heavens. "Hallelujah" was, well, a revelation. Cohen dropped to his knees, singing, "I tell the truth, I did not come to the palace of Caesar to fool you." The crowd went nuts. Cohen seemed genuinely humbled by the response. Returning from intermission, he told the crowd: "Thank you for not going back to the casino."

Special praise to backup singer and collaborator Sharon Robinson, who sang a riveting solo rendition of "Boogie Street," and the Webb sisters, Charley and Hattie, who dueted on "If It Be Your Will," complete with harp. If the band could be faulted for anything, it's Soldo's intensity. The wind player, while excellent, strayed into Kenny G country too often.

During the encore, he danced and galloped off the stage -- and skipped back for more, his deep, gravelly bass-baritone sounding stronger than ever. Comically, he returned to the stage for the third time to finish with "I Tried To Leave You."

To paraphrase Cohen, that was one hell of a way to say goodbye.

Leonard Cohen back in limelight after 15 years (11-11-2009)

Discussion: 5 comments so far…

By Launce

11/13/09 at 4:16 p.m.

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Great review, Mishak. I saw the abbreviated and relatively lackluster show at Coachella, but Thursday night's performance was a relevation. Wasn't it amazing that during If It Be Your Will there wasn't a sound in the entire Colosseum, except those beautiful Webb sisters?
And 1,000 Kisses Deep - wow.
By Mr_Burns

11/14/09 at 8:40 a.m.

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Well written review and quite accurate.
Over the last decade here I have seen dozens and dozens of concerts, and few if any compared to this one.
An exceptionally great musical night in a an exceptionally horrid economic year, his older songs took on new resonance and his new ones sounded as though they had been with us for decades.
Short of Dylan, there is likely no greater living songwriter, and even 'devout agnostics' such as myself were moved by mystical renditions such as 'Hallelujah'. In this age of great mediocrity, a night of actual Greatness.
A concert, and an Artist, not soon forgotten.
By STARBEAMS

11/14/09 at 10:38 a.m.

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Amazing that Mr. Cohen's voice is deep and gravelly and a baritone all at the same time in the same sentence.
By environprotector

11/15/09 at 1:20 p.m.

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If this guy is so important, how come I never heard of him in all of my 50 years alive ?
By TygeOD

11/15/09 at 8:07 p.m.

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Environprotector, I'm 40 and wasn't familiar with Cohen until 1991's tribute album, "I'm Your Fan" was released, featuring many well-known bands and artists. Cohen was a poet first and a musician/songwriter second. Although compared to Dylan as far as the underground and bohemian scene back then, Cohen took the road less traveled by and led a rather quiet but productive life. He became a practicing Buddist monk and I believe lives (or lived) near the monastery on Mount Baldy in California. If you're not a musician, no worries about never having heard of him. If you ARE a musician, well, shame on you.

Although there's a link to my encounter with Mr. Cohen above, here's a link to the official review I wrote for The Opening Acts music site:

http://www.theopeningacts.com/2009/11/th...

Best, TygeOD aka The Garbage Flower

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