O. Einleitung/ Introduction
1. Leonard Cohen`s Fredericton SETLIST
2. Leonard Cohen`s Fredericton „lost & refound“ GLOBE & MAIL – Review by DAVID FRANK
3. Leonard Cohen`s Fredericton EP „Live in Fredericton“
4. Leonard Cohen`s Fredericton – Ticket
5. Leonard Cohen`s Fredericton – Promo
6. Leonard Cohen`s Fredericton – Live On YOUTUBE
O. Einleitung/ Introduction
Das Fredericton Playhouse in New Brunswick, Kanada, bietet Platz für nur 709 Personen. Es ist normalerweise nicht möglich, Shows zu buchen, die größer sind.Aber am 11. Mai 2008 diente es als Ausgangspunkt für eine der außergewöhnlichsten (und unerwartetsten) Auferstehungen der Rockgeschichte. Das war die Nacht, in der Leonard Cohen praktisch ohne Fanfare zum ersten Mal seit fünfzehn Jahren auf der Bühne stand und eine sechsjährige Odyssee einläutete, die absolut niemand, am allerwenigsten Leonard Cohen, hätte kommen sehen können.
Starke finanzielle Schwierigkeiten in der Mitte der 2000er Jahre veranlassten ihn damals umzu denken, obwohl er Anfang 2008 73 Jahre alt war, seit 1993 keine Show mehr gespielt hatte und sehr unsicher war, ob er noch ein Publikum hatte oder nicht.
Es wurde eine sehr kurze kanadische Theatertournee gebucht, die in winzigen, abgelegenen Städten weit entfernt von den Medien stattfand. Es stellte sich heraus, dass solche Vorsichtsmaßnahmen nicht gerechtfertigt waren. Cohen stellte eine umwerfende Band zusammen und seine vertiefte Stimme erfüllte seine Songs mit unglaublicher Kraft und Emotion. Er hatte nie besser geklungen, und irgendwie fand er die Ausdauer, über drei Stunden zu spielen. Die Kritiken waren absolut begeistert und das Gerücht, „Leonard Cohen is back“ verbreitete sich sehr schnell. Bevor er es wusste, war er zum ersten Mal in seiner Karriere Headliner
Innerhalb eines Jahres hatte Cohen mehr Geld auf der Bank als je zuvor, aber die Tour ging einfach weiter. Er hörte 2011 auf, das neue Album Old Ideas aufzunehmen und kam dann gleich wieder auf die Straße. Er hat währemd dieser Tour fast 500 Konzerte gespielt,
1. Leonard Cohen`s Fredericton SETLIST
Dance Me To The End Of Love
The Future
Ain’t No Cure For Love
Bird On The Wire
Everybody Knows
In My Secret Life
Who By Fire
Anthem
(intermission)
Tower Of Song
Suzanne
Gypsy Wife
Boogie Street
Hallelujah
Democracy
I’m Your Man
Take This Waltz
(encores)
Heart With No Companion
So Long, Marianne
First We Take Manhattan
Closing Time
2. Leonard Cohen`s Fredericton „lost & refound“ GLOBE & MAIL – Review by DAVID FRANK
DAVID FRANK schrieb damals für den TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL eine Rezension. Leider ist sie nicht mehr im Netz zu finden. Erschienen ist The review from Toronto’s Globe and Mail, May 13, 2008 at 4:05 AM EDT . Ein Sammler rette sie und postete sie unter:
http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/5/342104/5384786
The lost & refound GLOBE & MAIL review by DAVID FRANK.
LEONARD COHEN – At the Playhouse in Fredericton on Sunday
Leonard Cohen may have 48 dates in 14 countries over the next several months, including Switzerland’s prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival and Britain’s Big Chill fest, but first he took Fredericton in an accomplished performance Sunday night.
The 73-year-old veteran singer/songwriter began by confessing his nervousness – „this is the first time in 14 years I have stood before you in this position as a performer“ – but he needn’t have. As soon as he stepped onstage for the first show of his first tour since the early 1990s, he was welcomed with a standing ovation from the sold-out house. While quipping that at shows in the 1990s, „I was just a kid of 60 with crazy dreams,“ he also took time to express concern for the flooded homes and fields of the Saint John River Valley. (Only 10 days earlier, The Playhouse itself was dark, its operations menaced by the overflowing floodwaters of the Saint John River.)
This Atlantic Canada mini-tour, which takes him to Halifax, Charlottetown, Glace Bay, Moncton and St. John’s, is a warm-up for the main touring event, in which Cohen will move westward across Canada and into international dates starting in June.
The Playhouse, a venue of little more than 700 seats, was a good place to be starting over and proved well suited to the intimate qualities of his music. It also gave Cohen a chance to note how pleased he was to open his tour in a city known for its poets. „I used to read the Fiddlehead poetry magazine a lot,“ he said, mentioning local poets Bliss Carman and Fred Cogswell.Onstage more than 2½ hours, Cohen certainly looked his age, a little stooped but dapper in a double-breasted suit and a fedora, which he removed to take a bow after each song. Cradling a hand-held microphone, he was able to move energetically around centre stage to interact with his band. He played two sets of eight songs each and four encores, including 1960s standards such as Suzanne, Bird on the Wire and So Long, Marianne as well as classics from his middle period in the 1980s and early 1990s such as Everybody Knows, Take This Waltz, Hallelujah and I’m Your Man.
There were no new songs in the lineup and only two songs, In My Secret Life and Boogie Street, were drawn from a more recent 2001 album. With its martial rhythm and biting harmonica, however, the 1992 song Democracy definitely sounded a contemporary note.
Cohen took up a guitar toward the end of the first set and again for two songs later. At the start of the second set, he also toyed with an electric keyboard, even taking out his glasses to examine the buttons when starting his Tower of Song.
He was relaxed enough by then to share a laugh with the audience over the ironic line in that song about his „golden voice.“
In fact, he was in excellent voice, his sure delivery given musical depth by a virtuoso group under the direction of veteran bass player Roscoe Beck and including Bob Metzger (electric guitar), Neil Larsen (keyboards), Rafael Gayol (drums), Dino Soldo (electric woodwind, harmonica and saxophone) and Javier Mas (acoustic guitar, oud and other strings).
Strong vocal support was provided by the Webb Sisters (Charley and Hattie Webb, a young British-based duo) and Sharon Robinson, a long-time collaborator and co-writer of several songs, who sang several solos and duets. There had been pre-show buzz that another musical collaborator, Cohen’s romantic partner, Anjani Thomas, would perform, but she did not appear.
Cohen knows his songs well and so did the audience, many of them old enough to recall that first album in December, 1967, that made his reputation in popular culture. Already one of Canada’s young literary lions, the poet and novelist seized the time to marry his muse to popular music, whose boundaries were expanding under the influence of slightly younger contemporaries such as Bob Dylan.
In mid-March, Cohen’s influence was celebrated yet again, when he was inducted into New York’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – although most record stores still file him under Folk.
On the road again, Cohen is once more among his own folk, less melancholy than his reputation and as passionate and articulate as ever. After all, public performance is a literary tradition at least as old as Homer, and although Cohen’s hair may be grey, closing time still seems a long way away.
3. Leonard Cohen`s Fredericton EP „Live in Fredericton“
4. Leonard Cohen`s Fredericton – Ticket
5. Leonard Cohen`s Fredericton – Promo
6. Leonard Cohen`s Fredericton – Live On YOUTUBE
and some more found on YOUTUBE: