Hi Evie and Womanfromaroom;)
well, only officially released tracks from 1988 and 1993 tours are on COHEN LIVE CD from 1994. The 1993 cuts on that album are from Canadian shows (Dance Me... is from Toronto, other songs from Toronto and Vancouver), while 1988 tracks are from Austin City Limits and San Sebastian TV shows.
Blossoms of Heaven used to be a bootleg in 1990s, but with advance of the internet, I think there's no more bootlegs (looking like real CDs), but you can get most of the live recordings for free from sites like dimeadozen. I just got some 1976 and 1993 shows from there, plus DVDRs of San Sebastian 1988 (2006 broadcast / digital recording) and "Leonard Cohen 1976-79" DVDR compilation. Free fan stuff - not for sale.
The best way to obtaining these is looking thru Google or on site like dimeadozen for the free download, or simply trade here in the Collector's Corner section. Buying the stuff on eBay means not only that Cohen is not getting any royalties (while he doesn't mind the fan recordings and their exchange), but also that some people's fan work (recording the show or finding the old tape from 1970s, making the CD, mixing, burning, editing, uploading...) is stolen.
Back to the violin and Dance Me... In
another thread here, recently we discussed how good 1988 tour was (and also we commented on 1993 tour). Adding to that discussion, and to this here also, I was wondering on Oslo 1993 recording about that long intro on keyboards which opens the show and Dance Me... (it goes before "la la la" and first tunes).
After some thinking, I was sure that I read somewhere, many years ago, that it was Mr. Cohen
opening the shows personally on his synthesizer (the one he uses on Tower of Song performance). (Why I say "read"? You have to recall the times before online downloads and home-made DVDRs - for years I didn't actually know HOW does it look like in SIGHT when he performs... I had only sound... And then I was *devastated* when I got VHS tape of 1988 show in late 1990s.)
So I was thinking how great that is... To have the man opening the show with some instrumentation on his keyboard... And I checked it - indeed, on my Roskilde 1988 DVDR the show starts with Leonard personally playing the intro to the show, and only then the band takes over.
[edit: I just uploaded Roskilde 1988 "Dance Me..." to YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkn2B_pwGqU]
CD
Cohen Live is also opening that way - that's Leonard on synthesizer before "la la la" and the band (and the violin)... I miss that tunes on this tour, I have to admit. But every tour has its own moments. Put together, it would look like the Photoshop collage of "the most beautiful woman in the world" made up of pieces of bodies of "the most beautiful women in the world" (legs from one, eyes from another, etc.) - it was done few years back and it was Mrs. Frankenstein.
.
.
