CONCERT REPORT: Brisbane, Australia, November 6, 2010

July 25 - December 11, 2010. Concert reports, set lists, photos, media coverage, multimedia links, recollections...
Evie B
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Re: CONCERT THREAD: Brisbane, Australia, Nov. 6, 2010

Post by Evie B »

Hi Dean, thanks for your excellent reviews, have really enjoyed them, and learning about your exploits.

You reported "Hallelujah: During the name check, Leonard said "I did not come to Bris-bane to fool ya"", did he really say "ya"?

Evie B
...he shows you where to look amid the garbage and the flowers
dce
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Location: Adelaide, South Australia

Re: CONCERT THREAD: Brisbane, Australia, Nov. 6, 2010

Post by dce »

Evie B wrote:Hi Dean, thanks for your excellent reviews, have really enjoyed them, and learning about your exploits.

You reported "Hallelujah: During the name check, Leonard said "I did not come to Bris-bane to fool ya"", did he really say "ya"?

Evie B
Evie ... glad to hear that you are enjoying following my various escapades around Australia.

On the Hallelujah thing ... well ... its always kind of hard to remember for sure. I mean it rhymes with Hallalujah, so it's gotta be on the "ya" side of "you", right? (at least in my mind) ... But now that there is a recording circulating of the Brisbane show, we can get an answer more definitive than I can yank up from my overloaded memory.


Dean (from Adelaide)
(For most of November 2010, I followed Leonard and the band as they toured around Australia and New Zealand. You can read about my wanderings on the blog I created to collect them all in one place: http://lcdownunder2010.wordpress.com/)
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B4real
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Re: CONCERT THREAD: Brisbane, Australia, Nov. 6, 2010

Post by B4real »

Dean, I don't know how you remember what you have heard let alone where you have been - it's a remarkable feat which you are accomplishing 8)
After listening to the audio I think it is "you" but everything is easier in hindsight!.....and Born In Chains was first sung here in Brisbane :razz:

Bev
It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to B4real ~ me
Attitude is a self-fulfilling prophecy ~ me ...... The magic of art is the truth of its lies ~ me ...... Only left-handers are in their right mind!
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B4real
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Re: CONCERT THREAD: Brisbane, Australia, Nov. 6, 2010

Post by B4real »

Well, it’s just over a week since the Brisbane concert. I can say that “with a little help from my friends”, I’m getting by……I now have an excellent audio of this concert. Oh happy days!!!

I also now understand why I didn’t get a decent photo of Mat (Waltzing Matilda the kangaroo) before I let him go. It turns out that he has a wife and child here in Australia and he didn’t want any evidence of his departure left behind. He has subsequently waltzed out on them both; his wife Tilda and son Joey (who is still a baby in the pouch) to join the UHTC. It seems they understand his need for anonymity and his waltzing, wandering ways and are waiting with whatever patience they can gather (although I don’t like the look of that boomerang in her hand) for Mat and the tour to return next year.
Tilda and Joey
Tilda and Joey
To which I can only add – SO AM I!!!......and these quotes could make all our dreams come true!
A warm thank you to everyone who attended the Brisbane performance; hope to see everyone again soon.
That’s the wrap on two sold to the rafters shows in Melbourne. Huge thanks to everyone who came out and if you missed the show, fingers crossed that we’ll be back again soon.*Rod Laver Arena - Melbourne, Australia
LOL – It’s all part of my withdrawal recovery therapy, isn’t it? If you can’t have a laugh, it’s all over!!

I also find this helpful in any stressful or unhappy situation:

Put on Leonard’s “Memories” and play it a few times. It is mandatory that you turn it up very loud and sing along. I defy anyone to be unaffected especially if you sing the back up singers’ part. Those doo-whaps are a mighty powerful mantra. Even better is to watch the video and attempt to do the same dance (hand) movements that Jennifer Warnes and Sharon Robinson perform. Of course, for this to be accomplished correctly it means you invariably have to have a partner and……..you know that a problem shared is a problem halved.

Yes, I think we (I am) are almost there. :razz:

So for all those who are or will invariable be going through the same unsavoury process as I have done; don’t worry there are no problems only solutions.
Last edited by B4real on Sun Nov 14, 2010 2:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.
It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to B4real ~ me
Attitude is a self-fulfilling prophecy ~ me ...... The magic of art is the truth of its lies ~ me ...... Only left-handers are in their right mind!
dce
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Re: CONCERT THREAD: Brisbane, Australia, Nov. 6, 2010

Post by dce »

B4real wrote:and Born In Chains was first sung here in Brisbane :razz:

Bev
Doh! That's what happens when I post without checking my own records from previous shows ... good to see that others are on the ball, though :-)


Dean (from Adelaide)
(For most of November 2010, I followed Leonard and the band as they toured around Australia and New Zealand. You can read about my wanderings on the blog I created to collect them all in one place: http://lcdownunder2010.wordpress.com/)
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B4real
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Re: CONCERT REPORT: Brisbane, Australia, November 6, 2010

Post by B4real »

link to a local Brisbane newspaperThe Courier Mail review by Kathleen Noonan about Saturday night's Brisbane concert and Saturday night in general -

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opin ... 5953806087

BEHOLDEN TO LEONARD COHEN FOR LETTING US RECONNECT WITH SOME REAL HEART
337636-leonard-cohen bne 2010.jpg
Real heart and soul . . .Leonard Cohen at his concert in Brisbane. Photo Adam Armstrong. Picture: Adam Armstrong Source: The Courier-Mail
THE heart of Saturday night is a hell of a place to find but well worth the journey.
It's hearing a lyric and thinking: "I know how that used to feel." It's seeing a piece of theatre and being so moved, your breathing changes. It's watching dance and getting lost, everything else in the universe forgotten. It's being reminded of things that used to make your heart race.

It can be transformative. But first there is the traffic jam. And the long hard day. And the headache. And the screaming kids. And the bills and unfinished paperwork. And the fuel light's just come on. And, you are kidding! The touch carnival is where? At what time? Great big slabs of real life get in the way of finding the heart of Saturday night.

The heart of Saturday night is remembering what makes you tick, what moves you, what made you fall in love, what made you cry.

You might be 40 years down the track or have two marriages under your belt or a string of loves and losses but there are still stirrings and inklings. You're not dead yet.

Is there no better way of remembering your reckless ways and lost loves and late discoveries than listening to the dense, glorious lyrics and rough baritone of gentlemanly singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen?

He passed this way early last year on his sell-out Australian tour.

I saw him in a Victorian vineyard under a cold, navy winter's sky, full of wine, and have never witnessed a crowd so entranced.

I then saw him again in Brisbane.

I don't believe in revisiting. Motto: Never go back. Some people try to recreate a situation because it was wonderful the first time. I'm all for letting sleeping dogs lie. A perfect concert should be left alone as a perfect memory.

So what am I doing in that long line of traffic, with red brake lights winking all the way to the barn of an entertainment centre on Saturday night with 10,000 other people?

Right before the concert, panic sets in. This is doomed. It can only be a disappointment. Surely, nothing can top the previous show sitting in the long dusk, his first on Australian soil in more than 20 years. This time I was tired, cranky, with plenty of work to do at home. This is a mistake. You should never, ever go back.

Good concerts don't have to be perfect. They can be flawed. The first half of Rufus Wainwright's concert in Brisbane recently was perhaps pretentious, if you consider requests for no applause throughout the first half plus a cape the length of a road-train like some mourning dress pretentious. And his diction was dodgy and the songs' beautiful misery too similar.

But the second half was sensational, right through to Walking Song, the Kate and Anna McGarrigle song from the 1970s written by his mother about his father, Loudon Wainwright III. Flawed yes, fabulous yes.

We turn up for concerts and theatre and events in our lives in all kinds of shonky conditions, with headaches and heartaches, tired and stressed, wondering: "Why aren't I at home with a quiet whisky and Peter Temple novel." The traffic has ticked us off or we've fought with the husband or wife on the way there. That's just the minutiae of life, the sediment of the daily grind. So, you need to shake yourself like a mongrel dog ridding itself of annoying fleas before taking your seats.

On Saturday night, I shake myself free and adjust my thinking. Don't worry about what's come before or what's after. Surrender yourself. The 76-year-old man in an immaculate suit skips on, takes his place with nine fine musicians and turns a rock arena into a cathedral.

All Cohen fans have Kelley Lynch to thank. His former flame and trusted manager allegedly depleted Cohen's accounts of $7 million, almost all his savings, leaving him with $150,000 and propelling him into incessant work of touring.

Oh, but what work! His world tour has floored the critics, won him a generation of younger fans and brought the artist the busiest time of his career. He looks rejuvenated by the work. The man next to me cannot work out how Cohen is so nimble, getting down on one knee or two and simply popping up again, with NO grip rail or groans, throughout the show.

The queue at halftime for the male toilets, for once in concert land, was longer than the females. "All our old prostates," a male near me said, before recalling the Cohen lyric: "I ache in the places where I used to play."

It was one of the most diverse crowds I've seen at a concert (apart from the Zimmer-framed man in skinny black jeans at Bob Dylan's show). There were plenty of 20-somethings there, too.

Cohen's songs appeal because they tell us failure is all right, it is human, but redemption is possible. They are songs that suggests it is enough just to have lived. They are songs at the very heart of Saturday night.

The heart of Saturday night is that part of you that is alive, that stirs you, that sustains you, the bit you can't explain, the mystery.

It doesn't have to be $200 premium entertainment centre tickets. I've paid $18 to see Canadian (what is it about these Canadians?) Serena Ryder play a football club in West End and remind us all why life's worth living.

Several people text me after Cohen: Best Concert Ever. One man I know cried at Cohen's spoken word A Thousand Kisses Deep. I liked him a little bit more for that.

There was a woman two seats in front of me, white-haired, wrinkles, easily 80. Hope I'm heading out the door on a Saturday night to hear someone express thoughts as beautiful in my eighth decade.

Can we go back? Should we go back? Can we repeat something that good? Before Saturday night I would have said, forget it, baby. But, be damned, we can. Anything can happen when we go looking for the heart of Saturday night.

noonank@qnp.newsltd.com.au
It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to B4real ~ me
Attitude is a self-fulfilling prophecy ~ me ...... The magic of art is the truth of its lies ~ me ...... Only left-handers are in their right mind!
dce
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Location: Adelaide, South Australia

Re: CONCERT REPORT: Brisbane, Australia, November 6, 2010

Post by dce »

Just a quick heads-up: most readers of the LC Forum will probably know by now that there exists a (currently circulating) audience recording of the Brisbane concert. If this is news to you, scoot over to the "Collectors Corner" section of the forum and read the last few pages of postings in the "audience recordings" thread.

Inspired by the existence of this entirely unnoficial 3 CD set, I've taken it upon myself to design some CD artwork to go along with it: take a look at http://lcdownunder2010.wordpress.com/cd-packaging/, and you will see my Brisbane CD Packaging. (As should be obvious,) I'm no graphic designer ... but hopefully these designs might be interesting or useful to some folks here.

One special reason that forum folks might want to check out the CD Booklet for Brisbane: I have enticed the forum's own Bev (B4Real) to contribute a full page describing the planning and execution of the great kangaroo toss. Well, ok, some of the text and photos is already in this thread ... but there are some new pics and interesting new details in the booklet description. So, fans of Bev's work -- and I know there are many -- race over and grab yourself a copy of the booklet PDF.


Dean (from Adelaide)
(For most of November 2010, I followed Leonard and the band as they toured around Australia and New Zealand. You can read about my wanderings on the blog I created to collect them all in one place: http://lcdownunder2010.wordpress.com/)
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B4real
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Re: CONCERT REPORT: Brisbane, Australia, November 6, 2010

Post by B4real »

Just came across this and thought it appropriate for this thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6rp_Rxsso0

Leonard’s welcoming speech Brisbane 2010 -
“I don’t know when we’ll pass this way again” ...... we now know the ultimate answer to that statement :D

Such wonderful memories for me in this thread and it would seem many more to come very soon 8)
It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to B4real ~ me
Attitude is a self-fulfilling prophecy ~ me ...... The magic of art is the truth of its lies ~ me ...... Only left-handers are in their right mind!
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