I was in Valencia Violet, sat centre front with a bird's eye view of the situation as it unfolded. Leonard had been "off his game" from the start of the show. He left the stage at one point before the collapse, something I had never seen him do before - to throw up as it turned out. We learnt afterwards that he had had food poisoning, been violently ill over an extended period and had not eaten anything for obvious reasons. He was leaning on the drum riser (as he had done for much of the show up till then) then simply crumpled to the floor during Bird on the Wire. Nothing to do with a pattern (or not) of passing out, or indeed, his final fall. Any of us half his age would struggle to stay upright in those circumstances. He was much recovered when he played in Barcelona a couple of days later though I didn't personally think he was at his best at that show (I'm sure lots of people would disagree with me).Violet wrote: The way Leonard collapsed while up on stage did seem fairly gentle a fall. He looked to be sitting down, then he slowly went forward and then down, perhaps landing on one of the many rugs he used to have on stage.
Geoffrey - I have been reading these exchanges with interest - and a lot of sadness. I too would like to know more but at the same time I do not find anything particularly strange in the limited explanation offered by Robert Kory. For what it's worth, I did not connect the fall and his death within the same immediate time frame. I took the statement to mean that Leonard had had a fall some time during the day (which is why they knew he had had a fall) and then passed away during his sleep that evening/ night. The truth is he was a very sick old man and very sick, old people often die shortly after a fall. I don't think it necessarily means he had a serious head trauma. Just that the fall was the trigger which led to the final failure of his body.
One thing I do find puzzling. Several people here and elsewhere have mentioned leukaemia as a given fact. However, I have never seen it mentioned anyway other than as speculation. How do we know that Leonard had leukaemia? And why, if he had leukaemia and was so weakened and ill (as we saw for ourselves in Adam's video and the October press conference), why was his death sudden and unexpected? Those are my unexplained question.
Wendy