Leonard Cohen in Dublin
Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008Update here:
Leonard Cohen In Dublin - Concert Review
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Lenny’s playing Ireland shortly, and I give thanks to the manager who ripped him off while he was living on Mount Baldy. Without this crook, I might never have had the chance to hear Lenny again. I worshipped at his feet in the National Stadium about twenty years ago when it was neither profitable not popular, and he was then the coolest man in the Universe.
He’s still the coolest man in the Universe. All that’s changed is the price, and I don’t begrudge Lenny a cent of it. This man has shaped my life, my thinking, my speech and my writing. Most important of all, he’s made me laugh, and for that, I’d lay down my life, almost.
Lenny, thanks for the laughs. I’d send you the money without a blink if you asked me, and I wouldn’t want you to sing a note for it.
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Update: But I did manage to get my tickets online. Woo-hoo!
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Elsewhere:
Stumble it!
March 14th, 2008
“thanks for the laughs”
bwahahaha brilliant….
March 14th, 2008
I take it you’ll be there for the fun and frolics then?
March 14th, 2008
Manuel: you know what’s even more ridiculous? I mean it.
Any man who can write “she’s a hundred but she’s wearing something tight” can’t be all bad.
HQ: If I can get a ticket.
March 14th, 2008
Huzzah! Tickets procured!
You wear a red carnation, Bock. I’ll be the handsome one - you can’t miss me.
March 14th, 2008
Nice one bock it will be some show!
March 14th, 2008
Did you get tickets for the Saturday or the Sunday?
I was about two minutes late to my machine this morning, and at two minutes past nine it was proving impossible to get tickets - then suddenly, like an angel of god a second date appeared and I got great seats…
Can’t believe I am going ot see Cohen live. Now when is Tom Waits coming back…. :P
March 14th, 2008
Saturday. I had a similar experience with the shit Ticketmaster website: the security code didn’t show, and I had to re-submit details, but I’d say their computer realised who it was dealing with and coughed up the tickets in case I visited my wrath upon it.
March 14th, 2008
I bet the Sunday show is better coz he’ll be warmed up with you Saturday lot…
March 14th, 2008
Oh God, Bock, that was beautiful with all these old people. It’s made my eyes quite shiny spilly so it has. The violin kills me. That’s one of my favourite Lenny songs, if not the favourite.
You lucky Limerickian. I’m off to see where he’s playing in California.
March 14th, 2008
He’s not bloody well playing the US! Shit! I’m on the wrong side of the Atlantic. Most of his dates are in Europe including one at Edinburgh Castle.
March 15th, 2008
Sam: Lenny’s not playing the US? Shit!!
I hope that means you’ll have to come back to us sooner than anyone thought.
March 16th, 2008
dunno if they showed the Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame inductions on TV in Ireland, but Cohen gave a great speech, funny and touching. He finished by reciting Tower of Song, which was so appropriate. You can youtube it.
June 9th, 2008
I have a pair of tickets for sale if anybody’s interested.
For the Saturday night gig (Sat. 14th June), Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin
Face value
E-mail: sean_walsh21@hotmail.com
June 14th, 2008
I’m still awake. Your blogsite is keeping me company in the very early hours. WHO ARE YOU? Meet me at Imma tonight. My husband won’t mind. I’ll be the one weeping hyterically with joy. Ooops, so will every other woman.
June 15th, 2008
i was at the friday show. it goes without saying that Leonard was amazing. beyond all words.
But the crowd were a disgrace - queuing and requeing and shunting around endlessly for pies and nachos and latte’s and booze.
Have these child-people never seen food before? i think people thought they were at the races and not present at one one of the greatest and profound events ever held in Ireland.
Did anyone else notice this, were the other dublin shows the same? was anyone at all three who could make comparsions?
I wonder was it an Irish thing? or a human thing?
“i heard there was a secret chord
that david played and it pleased the lord
but you don’t really care for music, do you”
June 15th, 2008
Yeah. There was a lot of eating on Saturday too. I think they’re the Suzanne people who didn’t realise Lenny had recorded any songs after 1967.
June 15th, 2008
We’re just back from the Saturday night gig, still on a high. It was the most amazing and beautiful gig ever ever ever. Just had texts from friends at the Sunday night performance saying that it’s pissing rain. Hope it clears up for them. Now we’re playing the film that I recorded last night, so that we don’t feel left out. (Is this a crime, to film the gig?? No one grabbed my camera to stop me.) Yes, bizarre how many people felt the absolute urge to get food/drink/whatever during a legendary performance by a legendary man, whom we may not get to see again playing on our island. Thank you Mr. Cohen. I can die happy, but not too soon, I hope
June 18th, 2008
I was there Saturday ( thanks MJ Smyth!) and, through the grace of God (apologies, a la Lenny if that offends any athiests!) I was there on Sunday too. There’s a young man with a little girl dressed in white, had tickets in row G, one spare that he sold me at face value: Thank You - millionfold, millionfold blessings rain on you and your little girl. Saturday night was great, watching the big screen from Row Z but Sunday night, to actually see Leonard Cohen in the flesh…… goosebumps, tears, the works: extraordinary.
In extraordinary circumstances, I missed the gig at the National Stadium, 25 April 1988, a date seared in my memory. So seeing Lenny live was literally indescribable. His voice? Utterly indescribable. And, you know, it did seem to me he was enjoying himself, enjoying the occasion.
And on Sunday night in particular, the Webb Sisters ” If it be you will”. Just astonishing
This was a long way from “Songs from a Room”
(which was where I came in) and the gig wouldn’t really have suited “Stranger Song” which is s touchstone song for me. But he appeared ( I heard he stayed in the Gresham). He was there. I was there. He sang “That don’t make it junk” and with the incomparable Sharon Robinson, did “Boogie Street”. That’s an extreme high on the scale of one to wonderful.
“You came to me this morning,
and you treated me like meat.
You’d have to be a man to know,
how good that feels, how sweet!”