There is so much silence in my house right now... A more clear report might come when I get my thoughts together better; but I wanted to tell you the story of how Famous Blue Raincoat happened (oh yeah, we got privileged with it, too!).
So we were all standing, and as close to the stage as possible, by the time of the encores. And Leonard starts "I tried to leave you" on his guitar-which has quite a long instrumental introduction. During all this introduction someone was screaming-actually, almost chanting- "famous blue raincoat, famous blue raincoat" (I think there were more people, because it was pretty loud). I can't figure out what that was about, because I thought newer songs are better known in Romania; or did they know only a few special concerts got FBR?! Anyway, Charley Webb makes a little sign to Leonard behind Hattie, and suddenly he starts "it's 4 in the morning..."... from the "I tried to leave you" music! I really liked that, because it was the one thing that seemed really unpredicted and unplanned.
The concert was as fantastic as the others before it, but I'll just mention now other things that were special and unique, comparing with other concerts I went to...
The Partisan. That's not one of my favourite songs, but it might have become then; it was really a powerful interpretation, and somehow apropriate in a country that got its share of partisans and shootings not too long ago.
The weather was quite merciful with us; it was cold, but it didn't start raining... until exactly the beginning of the encores. So Leonard comes back on stage, and tells us "I believe it is raining". Aproval, of course. So he goes then something like "I understand if you have to go, if there are places where you must be..." "So long Marianne" was the song he sang next. So around the end of the song he goes at the very edge of the stage (while he was singing), stretches his hand out, notices it's still raining hard, gets a funny expression (something between shaking his head and shrugging), and continues the song with "and just when I climbed this mountainside/ to wash my eyelids in the rain."
Things that intrigued me (and if anyone has answers for them, I'd apreciate hearing them).
1. Where was Sharon Robinson?! (she was not part of this show at all, which is kind of strange especially as her presence was advertised in our newspapers, too)
2. At the end of "Bird on the wire", a little thing added was something like "don't cry, you were always the one/it was you that the longing was made for". Did that happen in other concerts too? (ok, I'll check, but I'm too sleepy now) And where did this come from?
3. Something silly, but it obsessed me. During the first few songs, and some of the last, Cohen had in his hand something that looked like a... very silver
komboloi (I think "prayer beads" is the translation for that) Same thing was hanging from Dino Soldo's microphone. I don't remember seeing those before, do they have any meaning, I wonder?
4. The famous wine bottle... but I'll let a friend of mine to tell you the story of that later
Laura