thanks for the link to Abendblatt, courage. the article was obviously written before the concert but it contained a hint, that in the monday edition there will be a detailed review. well, here it is:
http://www.abendblatt.de/daten/2008/11/ ... 8.html?s=1
for those of you, who don´t speak German, I try and translate a few lines:"
"......after "Avalanche" from the early album "Songs From(!) Love And Hate" the complete audience stands up and applauds the the stirred (moved?) and surprised Cohen for some minutes.this song ist not his best known one, or it is specially surprising interpreted - his fans look for the moment of a spontaneous ovation and find it collectively after "Avalanche". "
my gawd, how can one mix up The Partisan and Avalanche........that the author of the article counts 25 songs one can at least discuss. the concert consisted of 26 songs, 2 of them without Cohen singing: If It Be Your Will and Boogie Street, that means Cohens sings 24 songs, but well, when you also count the recitation of If it be your will, 25 could be justified.....
by the way, in Berlin Leonard was still backing Sharon Robinson at Boogie Street. does someone know, whe he stopped this practice?
well, and Berlin leads me to some more remarks. I was in Lörrach in summer and in Berlin and Hamburg in the autumn leg of the tour.you can compare the 2 autumn shows very well. both took place in very modern multifunctional halls,one day Leonard singing, a few days larer Klitschko boxing or you can wath an ice hockey match. modern is a very important criterium - nowadays they build such halls in a way, that ythere is excellent sound even in the upper rows in the very back of the hall. that is why I did not go to Munich, though until 3 years ago I used to live there for 36 years and myparents are still living there. the Olympiahalle has a very poor sound, when you are far away from the stage/speakers. back in 72 they did not care for the sound in a sports hall. most of the fans dont worry about the acoustics of a venue, because they sit in the front part of the hall, where they have excellent sound directly from the speakers, but as my wife can walk only short distances, she has to use a wheel chair and the wheelchair blocks are usually in the upper row at the back of the hall.
We were very grateful for the 2 screens, left and right of the stage, full body pics of Leonard and his musicians at their solos and close up shots, at which I could see Leonards face even better, where I was without my wife, standing about 5 rows from the stage
( 2 meters right of the big stone, for those of you , who were there or checked the 360° panorama pic of the marketplace with the stage of the music festival on the homepage of the town of Lörrach).
For me Berlin and Hamburg were 2 excellent, solid shows. I could not make out differnce in quality of sound or performance.
As I had heard Avalanche and Famous Blue Raincoat (2 of my favourite songs)in Berlin before, I was happy he did The Partisan- not completely unexpected, the Frankfurt concert a few days before had this song too.
...."when they poured across the border"....I got goose bumps. by the way, does someone remember, when it was, that Leonard sang"when the Germans came" instead of "when the soldiers came"? I have to check my old tapes, must have been in the seventies.
some smaller remarks to changes
at the beginnig of the 2nd set, before Tower of song Leonard said in Berlin, he sang in Berlin 14 years ago, that he was 60 then, a kid with a crazy dream (according to a local newspaper in Munich he even mentioned there the venue, where he sang back then, Circus Krone. the paper qoutes Leonard with the words "I miss the elephants").I Hamburg he did not talk about former performance. At the end of Tower Of Song he did a long doo-damm-damm ending, saying thigs like before - do not stop, sing me to sleep, but he omitted the "answer to the riddles of the cosmos" joke.
the audience seemed to me a little bit more enchanted in Berlin than in Hamburg. Astonishingly in Hamburg there were much more not so well educated people than in Berlin (hope,there is no one from Hamburg, who is offended. the fans in the first rows do not notice that, but from the back of the hallyou can see, how many people, especially in Hamburg are late or leave before the end of the show, even before the encores. In Hamburg those coming late had to wait near the door. til the song was over. during the applause between songs they were lead to their seats by local security. the same procedure the first 5 or 6 songs! and in Hamburg there were more peole than in Berlin leaving before the end of the concert. I could not believe it, people coming up the stairs, while Leonard did Famous Blue Raincoat they left the room, not even turning around.
When you ask me, which of the 3 shows I enyoyed most, I have to confess, it´s Lörrach no hall can keep up with the atmosphere on a crowded marketplace, still hot late at night, kind of feelig like you are in the mediterreans.
And you are in high spirits, even before the concerts starts, when you are siting in a cafe there, with a glass of beer, and then Leonard comes with his musicians on the stage and does a soundcheck, 5 songs, the last one, If it Be Your Will, without Leonard. I am sure at least one fan (maybe more) filmed the concert from the upper windows of the hotel at the marketplace. hope the video turns up some day....