:: Leonard Cohen - A Day At The Green - January 2009 and at Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne - February 2009

By: Camille Broomhead

“It was the hat all along”: My two evenings with Leonard Cohen

What would you do if you’d been to the best concert of your life and then had the chance to do it all over again, albeit in a vastly inferior venue? Would you hold onto the memory of your original gig, or would you reason that the chance to see one of the world’s most dignified, brilliant performers doesn’t come around too often and thus decide to fork out another two hundred hard-earned dollars?

Fairly obviously, I chose door number two, and thus I came to be at Leonard Cohen’s final Victorian, and indeed Australian, show at Rod Laver Arena recently. I took my seat among a surprising crowd of calamari crunching, frozen coke swilling, white, middle-aged folk and felt sorely out of place.

The other show I attended was Mr. Cohen and crew’s first show in Australia at “A Day on the Green” (ADOTG) on January 24. Rochford Winery was the ultimate venue to see a performer like Leonard Cohen. It was atmospheric. You could buy delicious wine by the bottle, enjoy free dips and crackers handed out by goddess promo gals in kaftans, picnic on comfy rugs and watch birds fly overhead with uncanny timing during ‘Hallelujah’.

At ADOTG, the tension built through the fantastic sets of the frequently overlooked Blackeyed Susans and Australia’s own “national treasure”, the ever humble Paul Kelly (supported by nephew Dan). By the time the sun started to sink below the horizon, you could cut the anticipation with a knife. Finally, he came on, after twenty-four years, a little less than the time I’ve been alive, the legend himself, Leonard Cohen.

And he did not disappoint. Classic song after classic song wafted from his golden crooning chords – ‘Dance Me To The End Of Love’, ‘Bird On The Wire’ and ‘Chelsea Hotel’ to name but a few. He basically played everything from his definitive “Best Of” CD, The Essential Leonard Cohen. Strangely, songs from 2004’s Dear Heather were absent from the set. In contrast with his friend and (almost) contemporary Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen doesn’t tinker too dramatically with the original versions of the majority of his songs, although the spoken word ‘A Thousand Kisses Deep’ brought the house down at both of the shows I saw.

The backing singers, collaborator Sharon Robinson and the two Webb sisters, were all given a chance to sing solo cover versions of Leonard’s songs at various points throughout the show. These were all utterly stunning and served as a reminder of all the other beautiful cover versions of Cohen’s songs floating about in the ether, some of which have helped to keep his songs alive over the years when he was no longer performing.

Cohen’s performances certainly don’t recall the Russian roulette of Dylan’s, where you’re thinking “What’s he gonna play”, “what’s he gonna do with it?”, “Is he going to slip the audience some banter rather than his usual simple ‘thank you’ at the end of his set?” This show is predictably water tight. There were no variations between the set lists at ADOTG and Rod Laver Arena, but it didn’t matter, because when a 75 year old man puts on a two and a half hour show with no less than three encores, you get down on your knees in awe and thank him whole-heartedly for his efforts! Mr. Cohen was engaging, polite, and humble, an absolute gentleman. You can see the influence of many years at a Buddhist monastery in his every word and action.

I can’t complete this review without acknowledging the inanimate stars of the show – the fantastic hats! Berets, flat caps, and fedoras all make an appearance. Leonard’s trademark fedora in particular served as a prop of vaudevillian proportions. It was alternately sinister, cloaking his face in shadow, and deferential, as he doffed it to his accompanists and held it to his chest in contemplation.

Ultimately, ADOTG was the superlative gig. During the encores, I busted through the blissfully lax security in the AAA reserve and danced in the aisle only ten metres away from Leonard Cohen. By contrast, the Rod Laverians didn’t get up to dance once, and some of them left early - an unforgivable offence in my book. However, I’m not disappointed that I chose to go to two gigs. Knowing that a dodgy manager swindled the poor man out of millions, I view the money as a donation to Leonard’s retirement fund. A man who has brought so much comfort to me in times of sadness, and whose words can still make sense of an increasingly nonsensical world, certainly deserves to be comfortable in his dotage!