This immutable fact was brought back to me last weekend as I attended the 2nd Annual Adelaide Cohen Event.
Readers of this forum may recall that in January 2012 a small gathering was held in Adelaide (South Australia) – beneath a balmy summer sunset – to celebrate the life and music of Leonard. This event was organised primarily by Alan Mawhinney (AlanM from this forum). So successful was this convocation that a decision was made to hold another such event – in January 2013. The date was set for the weekend of 5 January.
Planning and Credits
While it would be accurate to say that once again the organisation for the 2013 event was undertaken by Alan that would significantly understate the amount of effort that he put into this endeavour. Early in the planning stages of the event a decision was made to grow the event from a one-evening gathering to a two-day event featuring a half-day bus-trip to the site of Leonard’s celebrated winery concert in 2009. This significantly increased the amount of organisation required … but still Alan took on not only the lion’s share, but in reality the 99% share of the task. The effort he put in across the many months leading up to last weekend truly was Herculean. Also, the behind the scenes work put in by Alan’s wife Karin to coordinate food and drink on the day are worthy of special note – they were truly remarkable.
One of the benefits of a longer event was that we were able to entice one of this forum’s most esteemed Australian fans – Andrew Darbyshire – to travel across from Melbourne to take part in the festivities. This was a huge boon: Andrew is both incredibly knowledgeable and very passionate about all things Cohen, not to mention an entertaining speaker on the subject. I truly cannot thank him enough for making the trip to attend the Adelaide Event.
The Event, Day 1 – Saturday 5 January, 2013.
The Saturday programme revolved around an evening gathering at Alan’s house, nestled in a leafy hillside suburb. The basic plan was to run a similar format to that which had been so successful in January 2012 but to attempt a few more ambitious things such as interactive quizzes and a live musical performance.
I arrived at Alan’s house a little after 2PM and the organised programme of music and video presentations were already underway. It was a bright sunny afternoon, but fortunately there was plenty of shade around Alan’s backyard entertaining area. He had, in conjunction with Mel – a fellow Adelaide Cohenite and professional musician – rigged up quite a serious-looking sound system just inside the little “summer house” which faces onto the patio area which was to be the main “convention hub.” This audio equipment was plugged into a large-screen TV positioned so as to be out of the direct sun but still visible to everyone. To be perfectly honest, the sound system looked a little frightening in terms of its possibilities for extreme volume ... but careful mixing kept the sound to a low, if somewhat bass-enhanced, level that was audible to everyone but which didn’t hamper conversation between fans. Alan had also taken the expedient measure of inviting his neighbours (who are themselves Cohen fans) to attend ... so even when things got a little louder later in the evening, there was little chance of causing consternation to the neighbourhood.
Alan had organised the playlist of videos and audio for the afternoon and evening, and in doing so had carefully put together a program which highlighted some of the newer songs performed live in 2012 and some of the songs which had evolved over time. I thought this was a very clever choice of material since it minimised overlap with videos and audio curiosities which were the focus of the 2012 gathering and gave the assembled fans a bit of a taste of the “new sound” embodied in the 2012 World Tour performances. Since almost all the eighteen fans who attended the gathering were also at the 2012 event ... and few of them had seen YouTube footage from the latest concerts, there was plenty of interest in the material played.
The first compilation of videos played was entitled “Greetings, Giggles and Goodbyes” and collected together a number of unusual Cohen introductions and other oddities – such as his performance singing to the headless rose. This short video played while the last of the attendees arrived ... so greetings was a good theme, particularly since for some people this was the first time they had seen others from the Adelaide Cohen “community” for almost 12 months. There was plenty of catching up and general conversation, in and around the music. For me, one of the immediate joys upon arriving was meeting up with Andrew, who I had last run into at the Melbourne concerts in late 2010. As he was the only person in attendance who had seen a Cohen concert from the 2012 tour, I was obviously keen to grill him about his impressions ...
With the guests assembled and the dips and nibbles brought out, it was time to get into some fine Australian wine – there were countless bottles opened and consumed. The younger LC would have been proud. My own humble contribution was to bring a couple of bottles of red which I had bought from different wineries on the days when Leonard had played his shows there in 2009. Opening and sharing these bottles certainly brought back a few memories ...
The next video presentation was something intriguing that Alan had been working on for a while. It was a short mini-documentary that he had researched, written and composed from a variety of videos and stills. Oh, and narrated too. The subject of the documentary was “5 Suzannes: Two poems, one song and two women”. It traced the origins of the song lyrics which we all know as “Suzanne” from their first publication in “Parasites of Heaven” (along with an entirely different poem about Suzanne). The documentary included lots of information about the woman, Suzanne Verdal, on whom these poems were based – including her somewhat less than comfortable later life. To stave off the inevitable questions, the doco also spoke about the OTHER Suzanne (Elrod), mother to Adam and Lorca. All in all I thought this was a really well-done featurette and was obviously a labour of love for Alan. But more importantly, the stories and music in this short video were of great interest to those attending the event. It was like a pause, when all other conversation stopped for a few minutes as we all listened – and (even us long-time fans) learned something about the remarkable lineage of the words to this song.
Not long after this, the first of the evenings several “Quiz” spots was held. For this first segment, the three “experts” in attendance – myself, Alan and Andrew – put our knowledge of Cohen lyrics up for quizzing by the assembled throng of event participants. Books of lyrics were passed around and people were encouraged to pick out obscure lines, which we supposed-“experts” were supposed to match with a song and write down its title. I knew ahead of time that this was going to be the first quiz of the night … and also that I probably wouldn’t do all that well. After all there are SO MANY words in the collected back catalogue of Cohen songs that it’s hard to have them all fresh in your mind. Thankfully, nobody took it too seriously – it was a very jovial atmosphere as folks relished our discomfort. In the end, though, it was a very close race – with Alan and I just narrowly beating Andrew. By prior arrangement there was no prize for winning … but the prize for losing was having to cook the Barbeque. In the end, though, a couple of volunteer chefs relieved Andrew of this duty, but the worry was etched on his face for a few minutes there.
The next segment was Andrew Darbyshire’s recounting of his experiences attending two concerts on the 2012 tour in Europe (Bucharest and Istanbul). Andrew’s account was quite riveting as it included lots of information about set-lists and the instrumentation which makes up the “new sound.” But it also focussed on the human element – what it was like to attend a concert in another country, with a local fan as “guide”. This was one of my favourite parts of the evening as, what began as a pre-prepared talk devolved into a much more free-flowing question and answer session. Clearly people were intrigued to know more about how the 2012 concert experience differed from what they had previously experienced in 2009 and 2010 and Andrew’s easy and informative style made his concert story (and a few other Cohen stories as well) a joy to listen to.
Alan then played the YouTube video in which footage from “Downfall” (scenes of Hitler in a bunker) are overlaid with subtitles in which he berates the assembled Nazis about their failure to secure tickets to a Leonard Cohen concert. This received lots of laughs.
The second quiz section followed – this one something that all attendees could participate in. Alan played a 15 minute edited highlights of “Leonard Cohen – A Life In Art,” the recent press interview of Sylvie Simmons (Cohen biographer) and the assembled Unified Heart performers minus Leonard. At the end of the video presentation, Alan handed out a series of multiple choice questions relating back to some of the anecdotes which Sylvie and the band related during the interview. The questions were (thankfully) pretty easy … and the prize (a copy of Simmons’ book) was won with a perfect score!
A lengthy break then ensued during which a ridiculous amount of food was cooked, prepared and eaten. Conversations drifted backwards and forwards on any number of topics, Cohen related and otherwise.
There were three organised events after dinner. The first of these was a quiz which Alan had devised around the idea of picking song choruses from audio played in reverse. He played a clip in which the choruses for all the songs in the quiz were played in their normal (i.e., forward) direction. He then played the reversed versions of those clips in a randomised order and asked everyone to guess which song was which and write their answers on a piece of paper. I’d have to say it was a lot harder than I thought it would be … but it was also a lot of fun. In the end the prize (a copy of the “Cohen Live” CD) went to a team of folks who had decided to pool their guessing resources together.
A little while later, the fourth and final quiz was run by Alice, one of the new attendees for the night. This quiz revolved around guessing a series of numbers that were somehow relevant to Cohen – for example, the year the “Songs of Leonard Cohen” album was released, or the total number of concerts in the 2008-2010 tour. People could call out answers and Alice – as quiz-master – would say “higher” or “lower”. While a little chaotic, this quiz was also a lot of fun … and it was made more so by the brilliant prizes which Alice herself had provided. The first prize was a framed concert poster from Cohen’s 1972 tour of the UK; second prize was the poster from Leonard’s 2009 show in Adelaide; third prize was a book of Cohen lyrics. All fine prizes … but one, in particular, seemed to particularly pique Alan’s interest – the UK tour poster which advertises a show which he had actually attended. With such great prizes on offer, the competition was indeed fierce, but in the end Alan did indeed walk away winning his dream prize.
All too soon after the final quiz was done, the evening was almost over … but not without one very special section – probably the highlight of the entire night. As mentioned before, regular attendee Mel is also a professional musician. Alan had arranged for Mel to perform a short set singing some of the classic songs of Cohen. Armed with a pre-recorded backing track, Mel took to an improvised stage (aka the front of Alan’s backyard shed) and thrilled us all with seven songs. For the record here are the tunes which Mel performed:
1. Dance Me To The End Of Love
2. Bird on the Wire
3. Suzanne
4. Seems So Long Ago, Nancy
5. Lady Midnight
6. Hallelujah
7. So Long, Marianne
It’s strange, but sitting out in the open air in Alan’s backyard – the sun had long since set by then – listening to Mel sing these great songs, really reminded me of some of the best of the outdoor Cohen concerts I’ve had the privilege to attend. The small crowd was enraptured by his mellifluous voice, and the magic of the lyrics. To add a uniquely Australian touch, I noticed that just prior to Mel taking the stage (continuing throughout his set), a group of baby rose cockatoos had started up their faint but distinctive “begging for food” cry in the enormous gum tree immediately behind Alan’s house. Perhaps less distinctively Australian but amusing nonetheless, were the sounds of the household’s new baby puppy, who decided that Mel’s set was an ideal time to begin making cute yapping sounds from deep inside the house (where it had been sleeping).
It was getting pretty late by the time Mel had finished his 30-40 minute set and folks were starting to think about the next day’s bus trip (and, in particular, having to get up early enough to meet the bus). Coffees were shared, and soon thereafter the first night of the two-day Adelaide Cohen event was over. For Alan I think it was a huge relief that everything had gone so smoothly … and indeed, everybody seemed to have had a great time. Some of us even walked away with some excellent prizes too ...
