Leonard Cohen takes Manhattan
Leonard Cohen plays first US concert in 15 years
AP NEW YORK – Leonard Cohen played his first U.S. concert in 15 years, returning with a two-set, six-encore, three-hour long performance that the singer called “a memorable evening.”
The 74-year-old Montreal-born singer, poet and novelist drew countless standing ovations at New York’s Beacon Theatre on Thursday night.
His lean, taut songs sounded particularly apt in such a time of economic recession. At one point, Cohen told the crowd he understood that hard times were coming, then drolly adding, “some say even worse than Y2K.”
Cohen knows something about economic downturns: He is touring partly because he learned in 2005 that his longtime former manager Kelley Lynch, had misappropriated millions from his retirement fund. In 2006, a Los Angeles court awarded him $9.5 million. It’s not believed that he recovered any of it.</em>
Wonder if he performed this, which could be the soundtrack to our current morass:
Ah I don’t believe you’d like it,
You wouldn’t like it here.
There ain’t no entertainment
and the judgements are severe.
The Maestro says it’s Mozart
but it sounds like bubble gum
when you’re waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come. </em>
