Author: Urban Bolta
Location: Arena Stožice / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: July 25, 2013
Attendance: 6000
Ticket price: 35€ – 90€
Who would have guessed, back in October 2010, when then-76-year-old Leonard Cohen played here for the very first time, that this musical giant would ever return to Slovenia? We had to wait just under three years for another encounter with the Canadian singer-songwriter, who has been musically active since the early sixties. Even though he turns a venerable 79 in September, Leonard Cohen remains a regular on the world’s stages. His strength, will and faith are still sturdy enough that he set out (at least according to the official promo line) on a final, extensive world tour, giving a dignified send-off to the friends who have supported his artistic work for decades.
Word is that Leonard Cohen himself asked to come back to Ljubljana – this time to an acoustically improved Arena Stožice, which the media had poured a lot of bile on right after his show three years ago. That was far from the only problem in the early days of Stožice, but in four years of operation the concert promoters have gathered enough experience to run events at the level people expect from them. The endless lines at the ticket kiosk and at the entrance to the hall are (apparently) a thing of the past, so it was Cohen himself who caused some grumbling and a few whistles of disapproval, climbing onto the stage with his band only at ten to nine, fifty minutes after the originally announced start.
So Leonard Cohen had already shown the Ljubljana crowd his aces of concert magic not so long ago, and yet a respectable number of listeners packed the Stožice auditorium, coming back for another dose of musical revelation. The opening big radio hit Dance Me To The End Of Love, with its soothing three-part vocal intro from the female backing singers, signaled which way Thursday night was headed. The band of top-notch accompanying musicians stayed with Cohen the whole way and wrapped him in a rich sonic curtain of varied motifs. Lush arrangements, with hints of world music, traditional North American folk and a pinch of southern temperament shyly hiding inside (mostly thanks to the Spanish-born guitarist Javier Mas), filled the ears the entire time and forced the audience to follow the nine-piece ensemble on stage with full attention.
The stage set was spartan. Exactly what an artist like Leonard Cohen needs. Modest curtains that hung from the ceiling and now and then changed color left all the attention to the man in the recognizable pulled-down hat, which has long been hiding his graying hair. This charismatic musician is among the greatest of his kind when it comes to interpretation. Cohen breathed new life into the songs he played, and with an intensely emotional delivery and body language he strengthened their already powerful message. He often punctuated verses with physical gestures, and especially in the first part of the show he dropped to his knees more than once, not to mention his trademark way of laying down the words with his eyes closed. A rich palette of moods, from melancholy, sorrow, faith and dreaminess to love and all the way to joy, sent goosebumps across the whole body, as Cohen, with his deep, intimate voice, turned Stožice for three hours into a world of higher bodily and spiritual meditation. His vocal interplay with the female trio of Sharon Robinson and the Webb Sisters was fascinating: the three of them followed the textbook lines, while Cohen kept straying from the originals and bending them to the mood of the moment, which was audible above all in songs like Lover, Lover Lover or Suzanne. Dreamy and tender, the way only he can do it! In the occasional bits of banter he also showed his human side, among other things thanking the audience for buying tickets and coming to the show, which in this day and age is really no small thing. Despite his years, Leonard Cohen still stood before us down-to-earth, flesh and blood, which can’t exactly be said for every artist of his caliber.
One of the central themes of the new European tour was the promotion of the current album »Old Ideas«, which Cohen released at the end of last year, ending an eight-year studio drought. In the first part he lined up the new songs Darkness, Amen and Come Healing, while toward the end of the show he raised the temperature with hits I’m Your Man, the always magical Hallelujah and, as a farewell to the main set, Take This Waltz. To be honest, the setlist was rather unoriginal, since the songs played from tour to tour rotate far too little, so we had already heard most of the material at the very same scene of the crime three years ago. Still, with each of Cohen’s comebacks to the stage, which just wouldn’t stop, the crowd greeted the Canadian musician with thunderous applause and standing ovations, which is certainly a huge compliment for a concert of such mellow musical vocabulary.
Several times during the show, Leonard Cohen hinted that he was saying goodbye to constant touring, and he thanked his friends (as he called his fans) for all the years of support. With another visit to Ljubljana and a three-hour odyssey of lighter folk / rock tunes, the old Canadian gent had no trouble winning over a well-heeled Slovenian crowd. Long after the legend is gone and only his music remains, those of us who were there will be able to tell people that we caught a moment in time when that velvet voice sang to us live about some of the most emotional stories on this planet.
Setlist
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