Other than my family and my wife the person I've lived with the longest is a fella named Markus. I often call him by his rock and roll name, Chick Rose. Markus and I have been friends now for going on twenty years. Once upon a time we lived on a 40 acre farm house in Indiana. We had parties, horses and even a beautiful barn till it burned down in the summer of '92. In 8 years of living on that farm, Markus and I came and went from the farm house, but someone was always there to watch our dog Claudius. Claudius was sort of forced upon us by our land-lady, who seldom collected rent and whom we never met, not even once. If this all sounds like a hell of a story,,, it was and justifies more than a blog post. It think it would make an interesting novel, I always thought of calling it 'My 20's, their 90's.' At the farm Markus played guitar and collected records. I learned my open chords and listened to the records Markus collected. We dug a lot of the same music and between the two of us, I'm quite certain we had the most complete collection of Leonard Cohen records in all of Western Pennsylvania. What ones we didn't have I bought overseas and brought them back. We talked about seeing him, but ol' Leonard was living with the Buddhist Monks at the time and seemed unlikely to tour again at his age. We talked about our pilgrimage and the hope that someday it would come to be.
So at age 74 Leonard announces his first world tour in two decades. Markus agrees to take a train from Maryland and meet me us in Philadelphia. Rob Moore is on-board of course and we all gather at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia's theater district. The Academy of Music is an opulent opera house that opened in 1857. It was a big night. The show was all that we had hoped and though the chandelier was closer to the stage than we were I still managed to get a couple pictures. I feel very fortunate that I was in the right place and the right time to see this performance... especially with such good friends. I can't help but laugh when I think about our camping party last week for my 40th birthday. Markus, Rob and I all performing a Leonard Cohen rock block. Crowd-pleasers? Eh...not really and apologies to those around the campfire that were looking for something a little less morose and little more John Denver, but I had fun with it. It was a fitting end to our 20 year Leonard Cohen Pilgrimage.
1 comment:
Jim,
thanks for your kind words, hombre. it was a great moment and great show and wouldn't have wanted to be there with anyone but you (and Rob).
i thought this review of his new album by robert christgau encapsulates a lot of what I felt about the Philly show:
Leonard Cohen: 'Live in London' (Columbia)
Grade: A
What a strange and inspiring story. Cohen had reached a state of permanent equilibrium by the year 2000, a revered cult artist in his late sixties with a multimillion-dollar catalogue and a mild case of agoraphobia. Musically he remained fairly productive, but detached, as befitted a Zen priest. Only then his longtime manager sold his publishing out from under his nose and absconded with the proceeds...So in early 2008, aged 73, he launched a money-making world tour that has continued ever since. Offered a ticket by a friend, I walked in a fond skeptic and walked out a convert. The miraculous show I witnessed, where Cohen literally skipped on and off stage, lasted even longer than this two-and-a-half-hour double-CD, which will now be my Cohen of choice even though its songs are pretty much duplicated on the excellent "Essential Leonard Cohen." The band is on it, the backup singers are solicitous, and Cohen's husk of a voice has been juiced up by the exercise. But the difference isn't the performances per se. It's the audience interactions. Gracious to a fault, Cohen is no longer detached. As practiced as his profuse thank yous are, his gratitude for the adoration of his cult is palpable not just in his stage talk but in the warmth and good humor with which he celebrates an oeuvre that no longer makes him a dime. Though I'd say it's less, Hank Williams may still be a hundred floors above him in the tower of song. But Cohen is no longer wondering how lonely things can get.
http://music.msn.com/music/consumerguide/?photoidx=3
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