A claim that we were in the presence of greatness at the Leonard Cohen concert last night is easy to defend.
First, the instrument: his voice was extraordinary after all these years, from the first spirited bars of "Dance Me to the End of Love" when the honeyed tones filled the stadium with ease, yet with intimacy (singing only to me, surely), to the prayerful intoning of the poems "A Thousand Kisses Deep" and "If it be Your Will". Until he left the stage at 11.30pm, the voice did not waver, and I suspect it could have easily played on.
Then there was the performance, like a devotion: kneeling, or singing with eyes closed in rapture as if to the Lord of Song. The tender enfolding of the mike in two hands arranged as if in prayer, or offering up something holy to be handed on.
He's funny. "I spent a few years looking into religions and philosophies, but cheerfulness kept bursting through". There was joy, and an exquisite sense of the power of the moment to be savoured, right now, as one never knows when one's voice will be silenced...(if it be Your will).
Acknowledging everyone in the venue, he included thanks to the audience "for keeping the songs alive all these years". Our pleasure.
