Leonard Cohen

Cohen is remarkable in so many ways, songwriter, poet and performer. The voice is as rich as ever, the phrasing uniquely his own and he has surrounded himself with an international band of virtuoso musicians. And although we are treated to that virtuosity it is almost certainly not what Cohen is about. Cohen is about the songs, his extraordinarily beautiful way with words and the seemingly simple structure of his melodies.

The audience were reverential, captivated throughout. Cohen, no spring chicken, stalks the stage, sometimes staggering like a wounded western villain shot through with pain and anguish. His works are a canon of hymns to both love and pain and no one expresses them better than him. Others try but simply do not deliver like Cohen.

In a set that lasted a good three hours he gave us what we wanted. He peppered the evening with his best loved works unlike some artists who save their ‘hits’ for the encores. He was generous too, allowing each of his band to take the limelight from time to time and gifting songs to the three divine female vocalists.

The band were tight knit but not glossy, there was still an edge to the music, essential to the integrity of the songs and although there were instrumental solos they were not simply pyrotechnic showing off but seamless additions to the whole. The same applied to the vocalists who honored his songs by sticking to them and harmonising gloriously. A faultless evening from one of the best songsmiths of the last fifty years.

Brighton Centre, 28 August 2013

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