• Als Spam markieren
• Beitrag melden

• 
  Diese Gruppe Alles

• Archiv
• RSS-Feeds

• Kontakt
• Hilfe
• Impressum
• Datenschutz

Nice Jazz Festival

Leonard Cohen
Nice Jazz Festival, Jardin du Cimiez
Tuesday 22nd. July 2008

It’s lovely, of course, to have a music festival in a pleasant public
park. But not so lovely if you want to park your car nearby.
Unfortunately, as in all big cities, parking is murder, and streets
for a mile around were jam-packed. As the evening approached the whole
area was cordoned off by the police and parking was impossible. They
even had a security guard on the local supermarket stopping people
trying to park there.

Our ticket said the show was to start at 7:30pm and so a few minutes
before this Lorna and I walked to the park entrance, where there were
fairly long queues of people of all ages. I suppose that is a nice
feature of these people like Leonard Cohen who have survived the
years, that their fanbase has been extended down the generations. Of
course there were the usual security guards, and they asked me what
was in my camera bad. I said it was my dinner, but they searched it
and discovered my camera. “Well, it’s not sandwiches,” the guard said
.
Everyone thinks they’re Bob Hope these days.

So I had to leave it at the ‘Consigne’ and take a ticket. I was a bit
pissed off at that, especially later when I saw that lots of people
had managed to sneak in their cameras.

Then we wandered down to the concert area and joined the throng of
people sitting about. I thought this was very badly arranged, as the
stage was at the top of a slight incline, with olive trees dotted
about. This meant that we would have to try and see over the heads of
people who were slightly higher than us. It would have been far better
to have situated the stage at the bottom of the incline, creating a
sort of amphitheatre, I thought.

Of course, it turned out that the 7:30 time on the ticket, was not
when our hero was due to perform, but this was the time of the
evening’s activities, and some other acts were performing in other
areas of the park earlier. Leonard was not due to appear till 9pm. So
we sat around as the crowd thickened, and as 9pm approached we had to
stand as we were hustled forward, ending up about 20 yards from the
stage. Some people were climbing the olive trees. Gradually the light
was fading, and the palm trees behind the stage became silhouetted
against the clear sky as it turned pink then violet then a dark blue.
Very romantic and atmospheric; a warm evening in Nice in the south of
France, about to see Leonard Cohen.

Then just a few minutes late there was a bustle of excitement as the
musicians and three girl backing singers took the stage and struck up
the opening chords of ‘Dance Me to the End of Love’, and suddenly he
jogs on in a dark suit and black trilby to thunderous applause, picks
up the microphone and starts growling at us in the nicest possible
way.

The band were superb and the sound excellent. I think they must have
been rehearsing. Of course, we’ve come to expect his voice to have,
let’s say, ‘mellowed’ over the years, and, let’s face it, he never
was
famous for his vocal style. In fact, I rather like the way he sings
now. He isn’t pretending that he can sing the same as he did thirty
years ago, yet he still seems to hit all the right notes in the right
places. Near enough for me, anyway. He wraps his left hand around the
microphone, which possibly gives a little more resonance to his voice.

Huge applause at the end of the first song, then straight into ‘The
Future’ – one of my favourites. Brilliant. Sings ‘Give me crack and
casual sex’ instead of the original lyrics as he did when I saw him on
TV several years ago. A bit more tasteful, I suppose. And then he
sings, “And the white girls dancing,” and gestures to the two white
backing singers who clutch each other and bop about. The third (black)
girl singer looks a bit left out.

Then ‘Ain’t No Cure For Love’. Wonderful. (Apart from the fact that h
e
keeps kneeling down on one knee as if imploring the audience to share
his pain, but only succeeding in disappearing from our view. I could
see fairly well, but Lorna, being shorter, had some difficulty.)

Several times he introduces a song with a few words in French: “Comme
un oiseau sur le fil…..”. I half expected him to do one of his songs
with French lyrics like ‘The Partisan’ or that other one on Recent
Songs that I forget for the moment. But no, all in English.

Then, as it was a warm evening, he takes his jacket off to show us his
grey shirt. I wondered if he would take off any more, but that was it.
At intervals during the show he introduces members of his band,
usually after a solo. The man playing saxophone and harmonica was
excellent.

Everybody Knows;
Who By Fire (I was a bit surprised he did this, but pleased)
Bird On The Wire (massive applause) Some changes to the lyrics.
Tower Of Song (Huge cheer for “I was born with the gift of a golden
voice)
So Long, Marianne (Everyone singing the chorus- great fun singing with
Leonard Cohen!)
Suzanne (Maybe the best cheer of the night)
Democracy
Hallelujah (“I didn’t come all the way to Nice in France just to fool
you”)
I’m Your Man
Closing Time (I don’t really like this, but I suppose it was
appropriate for the end song)

Then off to long and thunderous applause, but not for too long before
he’s persuaded back for the encore:

Ring The Bell (What’s it called? “That’s how the light gets in”)
First We Take Manhatten

And that’s it. A few words about how privileged he is to be able to
sing for us, and he’s gone back into the night.

I think I may have missed out a song or two, but you’ll have to
forgive me.

My back was absolutely killing me from standing so long (I'm not
getting any younger), but very happy. We wandered off to the back of
the crowd to sit on a wall and have a smoke when a TV team came next
to us to film a report, and I chatted to the director, an absurdly
young girl. She was surprised the concert was so long, she said. I
said was surprised she was surprised. Did we like the way he sang now?
I said, well, he’s 74, but yes, I like it. It was only for the local
TV station, so unfortunately we wouldn’t be able to see it in. I
suggested she interview us as 38 years ago we had arranged our wedding
so that we could go to the Isle of Wight to see Leonard Cohen for our
honeymoon. She said it was a nice story, but they were finished for
the night. Another chance for glory slips away........

Then we set off to leave the park, unwittingly ending up behind the
stage, where there were two cars parked, and a security guard made us
stand back with a small crowd, all with their cameras and mobile
phones at the ready, and I realised this is where the great man would
exit. I could see it was much too dark for a photo, but I got my phone
out and took a shot as he flashed by and into the car, almost hidden
by security guards. Of course it didn’t work.

I took a number of photos with my phone during the evening, and a
couple of sound clips, but they are not great quality, surprise
surprise. Got my camera back OK, in case you were worried.

I hope I haven’t gone on  too much, but I thought you can always
ignore the boring bits.

Ron Lapworth

P.S. A relative in England has told us that on TV the other night, the
UK Foreign Secretary, David Milliband, was being interviewed about the
depressing state of the country. He replied, “If you think that is
depressing, you should have been at the Leonard Cohen concert the
other night.”

Antworten