Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/entertainm ... IP3gWv2End of the road for Cohen?
Leonard Cohen Near End of a Long Road
Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/entertainm ... z16L8cXYxP
After three years, 247 shows and more than 6,000 songs, Leonard Cohen's world tour is coming to an end
By Mike Devlin,
Times Colonist
November 25, 2010 1:15 AM
After three years of near-constant travel, Leonard Cohen's tour is nearing an end.
He plays in Victoria on Tuesday and heads to Las Vegas for two shows in December.
Photograph by: Bruce Stotesbury, Times Colonist, Times Colonist
IN CONCERT
Leonard Cohen
When: Tuesday, 8 p.m.
Where: Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre
Tickets: $39.50-$250 at the Save-on-Foods Memorial box office (1925 Blanshard St.), by phone at 250-220-7777, or online at http://www.selectyourtickets.com
- - -
During the opening night of what would eventually become a triumphant comeback tour, arguably one of the most astonishing in recent memory, Leonard Cohen played to just 700 people at a theatre in Fredericton, N.B.
Attendance for the first tour in 15 years from the grand master of singer-songwriters only got better as it went along. Nearly every stop that followed Fredericton -- from Oslo, Norway, to Athens, Greece -- saw Cohen and his band play to audiences nearly 10 times that size. Suffice it to say, few world tours in recent memory have been so warmly received.
Now, with the tour in its third calendar year, the end for Cohen and his bandmates appears to have arrived. According to Cohen's longtime musical director, bassist Roscoe Beck, there's nothing on the tour schedule beyond Dec. 11, the second of two Caesars Palace concerts in Las Vegas.
"We'll see what happens after that," Beck said.
Cohen's performance Tuesday in Victoria at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre will be show No. 241 on the schedule. When the trek comes to a close next month, its final tally will likely read as such: A staggering 247 dates completed, more than 6,000 songs performed and approximately 741 hours of on-stage greatness.
Beck, reached earlier in the tour during a stop in Wellington, New Zealand, has a clear recollection of the tour's early performances. Beck had toured with Cohen numerous times in the past, so the act of playing with the Montreal native wasn't a particularly extraordinary achievement in and of itself. Cohen felt the same way at first, Beck said. He was equally unprepared for what awaited him.
"There was some expectation, via the promoters, that this could be a very big, successful tour. But still, Leonard would say things to me like, 'Gee, I wonder if there's an audience out there for me.' "
Once the shows started to unspool, Beck knew it was shaping up to be a rarefied tour, courtesy of a very special and unique performer. "Once we started performing, the reception for him was so warm. It was overwhelming. Having toured with him before, I knew his fans were very devoted and very enthusiastic. But the numbers of fans now who feel that way are much greater."
The 76-year-old singer has been in huge demand for the better part of four years. His resurgence in popularity got underway in 2006 with the release of Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, a concert and documentary during which his work was feted by U2, Rufus Wainwright, Nick Cave and others. That pre-dated by a year a massive reissue campaign by Cohen's label, Columbia Records, which the put majority of Cohen's catalogue, complete with bonus tracks and expanded artwork, back in stores in 2007.
Multiple releases in each following year prove that no matter how much Cohen is being offered, fans continue to lust for more. New songs have been written, three of which -- The Darkness, Feels So Good, Born in Chains -- are in the set list for Cohen's upcoming Canadian schedule, which also includes a Dec. 2 appearance in Vancouver.
Beck has played in the neighbourhood of 500 shows with Cohen, dating back to their first tour together in 1979.
The evolution of their relationship has been constant, Beck said, as Cohen never stays in one frame of mind for long. But the one aspect of life with Cohen that never changes, according to Beck, is the emotion involved.
"If you could play these songs without making an emotional connection, you wouldn't be the right musician to be playing them. You wouldn't belong in this band."
Cohen is a notoriously private public figure. In every sense, he lets the music do the talking. Beck has a clear indication of who Cohen is as a person, in spite of the singer's well-documented modesty when it comes to his own music.
That is the one trait which makes him difficult to read, Beck said.
"He's certainly aware that the tour is a great success. As to how he judges his own work over the years, I have no idea. That's not something he really speaks of. I spend a lot of time with Leonard away from the bandstand, and that is something he never speaks of.
"Every now and then I might remind him of some old song we're not currently playing and will spontaneously start singing one of his older songs, or pull out a guitar and start playing, and he'll turn around and go, 'That's a good song' with a little smile on his face."
mdevlin@timescolonist.com
© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist
Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/entertainm ... z16IOysvX5
