CONCERT REPORT: Big Chill (August 3)

Canada and Europe (May 11 - August 3, 2008). Concert reports, set lists, photos, media coverage, multimedia links, recollections...
Diane

Re: Big Chill (Aug 3)

Post by Diane »

Thanks, dontshakesweetheart, uh, I mean howthelightgets in. I imagine the money is irregular, doing the work you do, but even so - you have made it, in my book, if you managed to get a commission to take pics of LC on his Tour. I'm not surprised you did, though - from your portfolio you obviously have bags of talent and experience. Can't wait for November? Only someone in their 20's would wish three months of their life away, Leonard or not 8) .

So you asked him. You asked him, "Oh love, aren't you tired yet?" And he said no. He is some kind of man. I think actually I have changed my mind and agree with those above, having started to listen to the tape (thanks Robin, Dave) - I do think there was maybe an undercurrent of weariness in Leonard's voice. I did not feel it when we there in that electric atmosphere. Hell, how could anyone, of any age, do what he has done over the last three months and not be tired on some level?

Oh love, rest deeply anyhow.

Dontshake, I am dying to see your b/w photos of him at Ledbury!

Somewhere on here a photographer in Amsterdam took a wonderful picture of Leonard waving to the crowd, holding his hat to his chest, and catching a really beautiful expression in his eyes. Geert I think was the name of him or her. I'd love to see that one in b/w, too.
Hi Diane...

Here is Minute Prologue, followed by a part of Passing Thru, both London 1972 (live): recorded here off a vinyl album:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iok0KYUZf7c

And here is a LC at the Isle of Wight 1970, also recorded off a vinyl album:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOUi-KXd3Mw

i will be at brighton sans camera...and so i should be. filming not really allowed, strictLy speaking...anywhere, but i presume it's acknowledged that the youtubers, bit torrenters etc raise the profile and help sell tickets.

Oh, why did I sell all my old LPs! Scorp you take me back (this time) to when I bought my first LC LPs in the early 80s. I've read people saying on here that on this Tour the musicians with Leonard have been great, but that they'd love to hear Leonard with that stripped down sound of old. There is something utterly stark and raw in the early albums that brought many (most?) of us to Leonard in the first place. Watching your cool vid of the Minute Prologue (yes, you catch it, how it is playing a record alone in your room - examining the album cover, watching the turntable revolve, admiring the acoustics of your speakers), I am haunted again by the line, "But I think that I can heal it." Wow, that one line once meant so much to me. It was the way he sang it. Yep, it was the way he sang it.

"Oh, we're sorely in need of matches." The Isle of Wight Tonight Will Be Fine is great. I love the way he hollers out parts of the song. At IOW he sounded wonderful. I used to regret not being a decade older, because I missed some great gigs.

Cheers.
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imyourwoman
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Re: Big Chill (Aug 3)

Post by imyourwoman »

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imyourwoman
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Re: Big Chill (Aug 3)

Post by imyourwoman »

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imyourwoman
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Re: Big Chill (Aug 3)

Post by imyourwoman »

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scorp
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Re: Big Chill (Aug 3)

Post by scorp »

Diane wrote:
[snip]

Oh, why did I sell all my old LPs! Scorp you take me back (this time) to when I bought my first LC LPs in the early 80s. I've read people saying on here that on this Tour the musicians with Leonard have been great, but that they'd love to hear Leonard with that stripped down sound of old. There is something utterly stark and raw in the early albums that brought many (most?) of us to Leonard in the first place. Watching your cool vid of the Minute Prologue (yes, you catch it, how it is playing a record alone in your room - examining the album cover, watching the turntable revolve, admiring the acoustics of your speakers), I am haunted again by the line, "But I think that I can heal it." Wow, that one line once meant so much to me. It was the way he sang it. Yep, it was the way he sang it.

"Oh, we're sorely in need of matches." The Isle of Wight Tonight Will Be Fine is great. I love the way he hollers out parts of the song. At IOW he sounded wonderful. I used to regret not being a decade older, because I missed some great gigs.

Cheers.
then go buy all LC's vinyl on ebay! the speakers in the vids are from 1971, the amp is from 1975, the turntable from 2000. you could assemble your own system from ebay :-) (not that did, but it's entirely possible).

btw...did you post a link of some pics you took? if so, what is the link?

if you like janis joplin, here's a vid i did last year. i'm amazed at the number of views:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh_fD-0VwYQ

have just put a meagre handful of stills from glastonbury on to flickr.com - but i can see there are many many glasto pics there, which is excellent. mine are lost in the sea of pics... :-)
Diane

Re: Big Chill (Aug 3)

Post by Diane »

I like your middle pic of Leonard on guitar, Imyourwoman.

Yes, I could buy LC on vinyl again and do that, Scorp, and I like the idea. I have banned myself from spending any more money for a while though. I had some much loved Wharfedale speakers from 1980 to 2005, when one of them died. RIP.

Blimey, do you have videos of all your records? I prefer the Kris Kristofferson version of Me and Bobby McGee but I do like Janis singing Lord Won't You Buy a Mercedes Benz.

No, I have no link. My pix of Leonard weren't up to much. We were at the front but right out to the side and my long lens is not very long. Just had another look and here's one of Javier Mas (like Leonard, I take my hat off to him), and another one of the stage. It was the first time I'd seen the Greek woman backdrop. In Dublin it was the interlocked hearts and in Benicassim just a black curtain. Was there a backdrop at Glastonbury?
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paddieu
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Re: Big Chill (Aug 3)

Post by paddieu »

Pegasus, am really intrigued by your observation.

I can only compare TBC to Glastonbury, but my sense was that the actual tempos were slightly slower, and that this somehow left Leonard with 'too much time' to place the lines and pauses, and thus sometimes it felt out of kilter.

Now being deaf I can't play the two back to back and check out if this is true. But this was partly why I felt that the show didn't gell for me until Who By Fire, as that tempo was already slow enough that they would have been ill-advised to drop below it, so it well befitted what I felt to be the mood/energy of what was coming off the stage. (Some may have found Bird on a Wire to also be in an 'OK' tempo for similar reasons.)

On the other hand, if Leonard had wanted a higher tempo he would have asked for it, so maybe it was the relaxed feel of the venue and the Sunday evening feel, that meant they were content to operate at that pace.

So I also wonder if L's so-called 'tiredness' in the vocals was actually due to that general onstage mood, a low key-ish ending to a long tour.

Although the tempo didn't seem to pick up, the choice of songs meant that it wasn't really noticeable after that until Closing Time/ Manhattan, by which time it hardly mattered at all :)

I also felt that as the show went on, L put more strength into the vocals, as if they were all 'waking up' to some extent, ie that the excitement of the audience was helping them all to be just that little more passionate/urgent in what they were doing.

I find all this intriguing, not just because I study and write about performance art with other musicians, and am thus keenly interested in what makes a show 'great'/'good'/otherwise, but because I wonder what the indoor shows were really like (again, not able to listen and compare for reasons stated) - were they equally 'laid-back' as TBC was, or do they contain more of the energy/power that is still so evident in the Glastonbury performance ? In other words, which am I going to get on my first indoor show on the Fall Tour ?!

I'll stress again that it's not about 'better' or 'worse' per se, but just about appreciating more fully what the artist and audiences bring to each other's work.

Would welcome feedback, with thanks upfront :)
Robin
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Re: Big Chill (Aug 3)

Post by Robin »

Hello Paddy! (Paddieu)

I presume it's you - PL from Bristol? I'm Robin T. who you know through Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan and Arthur Lee meetings. Sorry I missed you at both Glastonbury and Big Chill. I also saw two of the Manchester shows.

The full set is a very different beast indeed to the truncated festival show, although the festival set is blindingly good in its own right. What you get in the theatre is a 3 hour performance of blazing intensity, beauty and intimacy performed to rabid fans. A Thousand Kisses Deep and If It Be Your Will are spellbindinding, but Leonard chooses with some justification not to risk them to a mixed crowd. That said, Glastonbury was the most affecting emotionally for reasons I can't really articulate. My wife Pauline, my daughter Alison and myself were in floods of tears during Hallelujah. My son Sam didn't cry with joy as we did but he did go out and start buying Leonard Cohen cds afterwards! The neutrals were won over. They were too at Big Chill, but it was indeed a slightly less intense performance overall. There was a little bit of end of term feel about it, and some of the tempos were a little tired. It was the 51st show since May 11th so i wasn't surprised. I did think Tower Of Song was spectacular though.
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imyourwoman
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Re: Big Chill (Aug 3)

Post by imyourwoman »

Leonard singing Hallelujah @ The Big Chill. Not bad quality.

Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_o_rUeWioo
abeggarleaning
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Re: Big Chill (Aug 3)

Post by abeggarleaning »

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Some more pictures from the front row
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pegasus4
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Re: Big Chill (Aug 3)

Post by pegasus4 »

Paddieu an Interesting posting.My experience has similarly been at two outdoor venues, Amsterdam and TBC.I look forward to an indoor venue in November. Your thoughts on a slower tempo are intriguing. I would add to this a definite sound balance change about the time of Who by Fire which I mentioned previously.Correct me if I'm wrong but Javier did an extended intro to this number and he was barely audible where we were standing,which was right next to the Sound and Lighting control tower console.I'm certain they picked up on this and adjusted the balance.It affected Sharon and the Webb sisters as well and from that point onward the balance which had been wanting, improved.This might have accounted for an uplift in tempo.There was more strenght in the sound from that point and things took off.I doubt if down the front where things were obviously more electric it mattered too much but where we were the better balance probably helped to focus the crowd on the performance.Certainly there were less distractions and the energy and enthusiasm lifted a notch.The energy LC then put into Hallelujah was phenomenal and Tower of Song was another stand out performance .As you say by the end it didn't matter.We were all anoracks of the heart and soul !


Have to say like you Oliverc ,I'm a massive Dylan fan and have seen him a few times but not of late Reason ,despite his 'third coming ' with the excellent last three albums I would probably be less than impressed by his live performance nowdays.I will ,however,try and see him when he tours here again just to be proved wrong.
scorp
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Re: Big Chill (Aug 3)

Post by scorp »

Diane wrote: [snop]

Blimey, do you have videos of all your records?

I prefer the Kris Kristofferson version of Me and Bobby McGee but I do like Janis singing Lord Won't You Buy a Mercedes Benz.

No, I have no link. My pix of Leonard weren't up to much. We were at the front but right out to the side and my long lens is not very long. Just had another look and here's one of Javier Mas (like Leonard, I take my hat off to him), and another one of the stage. It was the first time I'd seen the Greek woman backdrop. In Dublin it was the interlocked hearts and in Benicassim just a black curtain. Was there a backdrop at Glastonbury?
lc20.jpg
lc21.jpg
well i like your pics....and no i haven't put all my vinyls on to youtube! the backdtop at glasto was the interlocked hearts. nice to know you were at the big chill. did you see LC at Benicassim as well as Dublin?
Diane

Re: Big Chill (Aug 3)

Post by Diane »

Hi again Scorp. Yes, I did also see Dublin (3 nights) and Benicassim. Each concert has it's own space in my memory. In Dublin we got a longer set of course, including Thousand Kisses Deep recitation and Webb sisters doing if It Be Your Will, both outstanding. I hope you get to experience those in November.

Listening to the tape of The Big Chill, I love the way that during the applause for So Long Marianne Leonard says, " Thanks so much friends, it is a great honour to play for you this evening," and someone from the audience shouts out, "it is a great honour to be here."

There's a really nice buzz in this forum since the concerts 8).
Ziyad
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Re: Big Chill (Aug 3)

Post by Ziyad »

Hi Diane

I think that was me who called back to Leonard, assuming the recording was near the front - I was 3rd row in the middle!
1974 London RAH|1976 London RAH, London New Vic x 3|1979 Manchester|1985 London Hamm x 2|1988 London RAH x 3|1993 London RAH x 2|2008 Manchester x 2, Glastonbury, London O2 x 2, Big Chill, London RAH, Brighton|2009 Weybridge|2012 London Wembley|2013 London O2 x 2

"thanks for the trouble you took from her eyes, i thought it was there for good so i never tried"
Robin
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Re: Big Chill (Aug 3)

Post by Robin »

My recording was made from the front rail centre, so you were just behind me and the microphone.
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