Judy P's Tickle Trunk

Leonard Cohen

I was into Leonard Cohen long before I even knew it. I recently found an old notebook from my late teen years into which I had copied the words to True Love leaves No Traces, not even knowing then that it was a song. So I was beyond excited when I won tickets to his Halifax concert by entering an online contest. And it seemed an even more auspicious occasion when we discovered that the concert was to be on the day that my husband’s father would have turned 100, had he lived. That said, I wasn’t really sure what to expect given my record of disappointments (Dylan and Van Morrison). I walked into the metro centre last night with my tickets in one hand and my grocery list in the other, confident that it would be a short evening – no warm up act, the star pushing 80 – believing that we could run errands on the way home. Ha! It was almost the next day, five minutes shy of midnight,  when I passed through those doors again. Leonard Cohen delivered in spades and how was I feeling? Happy, bright, and above all , inspired – as I am by any great work of art.

The whole show was so much more than a sum of its parts. Any one of Cohen’s band could have given us a full evening of entertainment on their own, but Leonard was the star,  completely without ego, around whom all revolved.  He showed us this by frequently paying homage to his band. Indeed, the show opened with the audience on its feet and Mr. Cohen on his knees, facing not the crowd but turned towards his guitarist as if to say “look at him, look at this great guy playing with me.” No, I was not disappointed. Like a good red wine, Cohen’s voice has become much more interesting with age. Paired with the Spanish guitar it still delivered the sensuality which Cohen has always exuded, exemplified in his spoken rendition of A Thousand Kisses Deep though it is now tinged with a  healthy dose of humour. His voice and the familiar songs took me back to a night in St. John’s, to a post rehearsal cast party where I learned that Bob Dylan was not a country singer, that I shouldn’t mistake Anya Seton for Anaïs Nin, where I tasted Cinzano vermouth for the first time, and where I learned that Leonard Cohen wrote so much more than Bird on a Wire. The years dropped away as I sang quietly along with the real Leonard (you know the music is good when everyone is singing along but only in whispers so that they can still hear every syllable that the artist utters.) Yes, he had me from start to finish, and still with the first and second encores, and wonders never cease, the  third encore. How can a man that age sustain the energy right up to skipping off the stage after delivering for almost four hours?

That wasn’t the only question the show generated. I also asked myself: “how low can you go?” (yet another octave apparently) and “what would you get if you crossed Frank Sinatra with the Dalai Lama?” and “how could a person sit and listen to that calibre of music and not keep time with his hands, his feet, his whole body at times?” There were also many truths revealed: old black Joe’s still pickin’ cotton for your ribbons and your bows, and  ain’t nothin’ pure enough to be a cure for love,  and there’s a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.

What this show had was balance, in the performance as well as in the visual space. Half a dozen times throughout the night I wished I had a camera or even a stump of charcoal so that I could capture a moment; Cohen in his classic black hat standing in two intersecting beams of soft white light, the microphone pressed to his lips, the beautiful curve of Hattie Webb’s brow leading into the curved top of her harp, Cohen kneeling before Javier Mas who was curled around his instrument, both performing as if they shared a soul. The perfect line of the back-up vocalists in their tuxedos looking like the black keys on a piano was balanced on the other side by the three men wearing black hats all in a curve around the central action, inviting us into a musical embrace. The mood was relaxed and I enjoyed the lack of fierce intensity so common in performers but so distracting as to make you want to hold your breath. The poetry, the energy, and the mastery of the instruments, from the vocal cords to the violin strings, made the show more than just an entertainment; it was a spiritual experience. Hallelujah!

Special thanks to The Coast who so generously gave away tickets to see Cohen – I am forever grateful.

Judy Parsons 2013