Leonard Cohen - Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight (41 tracks) +Album Reviews

He could barely stand on a stage in '67. By '70, he was a ki

Jesse Kornbluth | New York | 10/14/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is not a review of a legendary concert appearance by Leonard Cohen.

It's a meditation on personal power. His. Yours. Mine.

Essentially, I'm trying to figure out here what happens below the surface of your life so you can --- how you access your power for career advancement, personal gain and, not least, the good of the world.

But to do that, I have to tell you a Leonard Cohen story and urge you to watch a 64-minute documentary.

Here's the story.

In l967, 32-year-old Leonard Cohen --- a novelist and poet who was just starting out as a singer/songwriter --- walked onstage at Carnegie Hall, looked out at the audience, and started shaking. "I can't do this," he said, and left the stage. In the wings, Judy Collins took his hand, led him in front of the audience again and sang "Suzanne" with him.

In 1970, 35-year-old Leonard Cohen agreed to perform at England's Isle of Wight music festival. It was not a happy event. Angered that there was a wall to keep out those who hadn't paid, some of the young festivalgoers rebelled. They tore down fences. They crashed the gates. There were fires and fights. There was garbage.

600,000 people. Living outside. For almost five days.

At 2 in the morning of the fifth and final day, Leonard Cohen was awakened and asked to hurry onstage. There was no piano, no organ. Cohen, in his pajamas, insisted on both. And then he went back to his trailer to get dressed.

At 4 in the morning, Cohen took the stage. He looked into the darkness and, gently, slowly, told a story of going to the circus as a kid and liking only the moment when the audience lit matches in the darkness. He asked the crowd to light matches, and he waited while they did, and then he sang "Bird on a Wire."

And he owned that crowd. He held 600,000 souls in the palm of his hand, and he brought them his brave, sad songs, and they listened to him as if he were a prophet.

This amazing footage is the start of the 64-minute concert DVD that is half of the package. (The other half is a CD of Cohen's performance. If you are a Leonard Cohen fan, it's of minor interest; if you're new to Cohen, it's even less interesting.)

Here's my question: On that stage, Leonard Cohen was in a state of calm beyond calm. What occurred in those three years to give him that outrageous certainty in himself? How did the transformation occur?

And then, to make it personal, can I do that? Can you?

I can only hazard a guess here. But it strikes me that, at Carnegie Hall, Cohen stuck a toe in the water of live performance. And he saw that it didn't kill him, that it pleased him and raised him up, bringing him closer to the self he imagined. And he followed it with another step, and another, until 600,000 people were no big deal.

That's a very crude formulation. It doesn't deal at all with doubts and fears, with backsliding; it makes Cohen into a mythic figure, a terminator, resolutely moving forward. I doubt it happened that smoothly for him. I suspect there was a lot of determination involved, and picking himself up when he faltered. But I think the steadiness of the effort served him well --- after a while, he was in a new place, and when he looked back, he didn't recognize his old, fearful self.

It's what Anne Lamott writes in "Bird by Bird". Her brother had to write a school report about birds. The kid couldn't figure out a way to do it. But their father did. "Bird by bird, buddy," he said.

You want to see how far you can get if you keep at it? Look at "Leonard Cohen Live in London", captured last year, when Cohen was 75. Or just go to the music. What you get is the same thing again and again --- Cohen pays total attention, he's completely in the moment, and soon you are. He tunes you, just as he tuned the 600,000 in 1970s.

One of the mottoes of the Texas Rangers is this: "Little man whip a big man every time if the little man's in the right and keeps on coming." I have trouble believing that; the streets of history are littered with the corpses of little men who didn't grasp how cruel the powerful can be. But I think Cohen believes it, and I think that simple belief made the difference. And in watching his remarkable 1970 performance, I do rediscover my courage.

"

The music of Leonard Cohen shines in a classic performance f

Chris Zabel | 10/21/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Murray Lerner has unearthed quite a gem in making this film featuring Leonard Cohen's mesmerizing Isle of Wight performance from 1970. The 64-minute film deftly weaves modern interviews from relevant performers and associates of Leonard Cohen with the vintage musical performance by Cohen and his band, the affectionately named "Army" comprised of such stalwarts as legendary music producer Bob Johnston.

The audio quality is a sonic revelation, obliterating my expectations for a live multi-track recording from 1970 staged in front of 600,000 fans that had gotten rowdier as the festival progressed. Jimi Hendrix had performed his set before Cohen, with the crowd setting various things on fire like a piano and the scaffolding surrounding the stage. But the music was not to be denied, as Leonard Cohen slowly took the stage after they found a replacement piano and organ.

At 4 a.m. on August 31, 1970, the man introduced to the crowd as "a novelist, a poet, an author, a singer", began his intimate performance that encompassed most of the hits that had earned him acclaim, from "Bird On the Wire" to "Suzanne" and other well-known songs mainly from his first two albums. A nice surprise are the short stories Cohen shares and poem fragments he uses to introduce many of the songs. The crowd, who had booed previous performers like Kris Kristofferson, sat in rapt attention to the mostly acoustic set. My only quibble is that the complete audio performance by Leonard Cohen is not included on the Blu-ray. The CD version includes a couple of songs not shown in the documentary. I have no idea if the footage simply did not exist or was simply left out at the director's discretion.

The Blu-ray, on a single BD-25, is transferred from the original 16mm camera negative to 1080i. This is not footage that is going to blow viewers away by its visual quality. In fact on an absolute basis, the BD is well below the norm expected for high-definition titles. Prepare for an experience of limited visual quality. It is true that this Blu-ray replicates as closely as possible the 16mm film source the concert was shot in. The modern interviews, with such luminaries as Judy Collins and Joan Baez, are all in excellent picture quality, but do remind the viewer of the inherent limitations in the concert footage. Still, it looks like much of the other concert footage I have seen from the era on the Blu-ray format. The only notable defect is the continual appearance of an ultra-thin vertical black line that runs down the middle of the camera image on tight close-ups of Leonard Cohen. It looks to be the result of a continuous gate scratch on the original 16mm film. A small emulsion error in the original master also appears in the corner of the frame, later in the concert.

On a technical basis the transfer looks perfect without a hint of artifacting, revealing every limitation and nuance of the source material. The AVC encode consistently runs at very high bitrates, most of the time in the thirties. I would estimate an average video bitrate of 31 Mbps, which allows the fuzzy film shot in questionable lighting conditions to reveal its full resolution on Blu-ray. The image has a low-contrast appearance that is soft and has moments of poor focus. The black levels have some minor exposure problems, revealing a bit of noise. This is not a transfer with remarkable shadow detail, or even average detail, but looks on par with other concert footage I have viewed from the period. The Woodstock documentary on Blu-ray has similar picture quality. Tiny white specks that look like flash bulbs do pepper the image from time to time. It rarely becomes a distraction though.

The picture quality is tolerable enough to enjoy the real benefit of this BD release, the uncompressed high-resolution stereo PCM track at 24-bit/96 kHz and the lossless 5.1 Dolby TrueHD soundtrack. Both are simply spellbinding and really the only way one should listen to this material. Mastering engineer Mark Wilder has done an outstanding job. The music shows absolutely no signs of limiting or compression, and reproduces without fault this live audio document. I wish most music releases were mastered this carefully. There is not a hint of thinness to the sound, and the fidelity is surprisingly great for a project of this nature. At times the songs approach the quality of the studio versions in dynamics and clarity. The producer did not attempt to cover up any deficits in the original recording though. A few microphone pops occur and occasionally instruments bleed into other channels. The audience is barely audible most of the time except during the musical interludes. With both SACD and DVD-Audio being commercially irrelevant for the major music labels, this disc is the best fidelity we will ever see this music presented in a commercial medium.

A lot of care and thought has gone into the packaging and presentation of this release. Included is a 16-page booklet that has wonderful photographs and top-notch liner notes by Sylvie Simmons. The booklet reproduces the same content of the booklet included in the CD/DVD release, but in a much larger format that is easier to read and enjoy. It really makes the numerous archival photographs easier to appreciate. It is rare to see such entertaining and insightful liner notes that significantly add to the product, but that is plainly the case here. Aside from a menu, there are no extras on the disc itself.

Currently this BD is an exclusive title at the Internet retailer Amazon. Fans of Leonard Cohen need to go out and pick this item up immediately. The concert is a window to a much younger looking-and-sounding Leonard Cohen. The sound quality alone is enough reason to buy it, for Cohen truly invests emotion and vigor into the performance that puts a new spin on songs for fans only familiar with the album versions. His vocal inflection adds a bit of emotional weariness to "The Partisan" for example that is simply not there on the album version. The only lackluster performance is "Famous Blue Raincoat", where it sounds as if Cohen's voice grows fatigued. The backing musicians all give splendid accompaniment to the music, though the camera rarely shows them aside from the two comely female singers at Cohen's side.

Subtitles available:

Spanish

English

French

Dutch

Italian

German"

Looking Forward

Frederick A. Levy | Newport News, VA, United States | 09/05/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I own the VHS of the Isle of Wight concert, and am very much looking forward to this Blu-ray treatment, especially since it closely follows the London DVD of his current concert tour. Leonard is 74 now, and as creative and productive as he's been during his long career, which began in the late '60s. It's a fitting paean to his great career - Cohen ranks as one of the most important and influential songwriters of the past 42 years - that these concert releases are coming out now. Happily, my daughter and I are going to be seeing him live in Durham, North Carolina (USA) on 11/3 - a once in a lifetime experience. For the uninitiated, the concert would likely serve as a useful sampler of his work, and provide a bookend to his most recent releases. For more, check out the Lian Lunson documentary/concert film from a few years ago, "Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man," which features a long, segmented interview with Leonard interspersed with footage from an Australian tribute concert with some excellent performances.

Note: I rated this review without seeing it because Amazon would not let me post it unless I did. I do, however, have high hopes."

Essential for Fans

Bill R. Moore | New York, USA | 01/20/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"1970's Isle of Wight Festival was one of the landmark events in popular music history, comparable to the prior year's Woodstock. 600,000 people heard some of the era's most popular and significant artists over five days. There were multiple great performances, but at least as important culturally and historically is what the crowd itself did - in a word, explode. About three times as many people showed up as expected, many without paying. A wall was put up to keep out the latter, and the crowd rebelled. The wall was knocked down, and many things were set on fire - including the very stage during one of Jimi Hendrix's most famous performances, as well as several instruments. Some of the less incendiary performers, such as Kris Kristofferson, were pelted and/or booed offstage. Fed up and perhaps scared, director Murray Lerner, there to film the festival, packed up before Cohen's performance.

Such was the atmosphere when Leonard Cohen was due to play after Hendrix - a near-impossible act to follow in any case, needless to say. Pushing his already seemingly bad luck, Cohen insisted on a piano and organ when told they had been burned and pushed offstage, taking a nap in the meantime. He was eventually woken up and casually took his time getting dressed - putting clothes over his pajamas - and tuning. Then, with complete calm and something like mastery, he took the stage. Even then he did not launch into his long-awaited - his current album was #2 in the UK - and long-delayed performance but strolled gingerly to the microphone and gave a long allegory about attending the circus as a child. Finally, after an impromptu little song about the moment, he slowly lead into his then-popular, now-classic "Bird on a Wire" - and the rest was indeed history.

Cohen gave an excellent, hour-plus performance that is one of his most significant. By rights it should have been released at the time or in intervening decades, as have live albums by several other artists at the event. It may have been held back because Cohen had an ongoing studio album - Songs of Love and Hate -, three songs from which appear here, and/or because he had a live album a few years later. The recent Cohen revival - which sees him more popular than ever in many places, including America - finally and thankfully ensured the release fans have been wanting for almost forty years. Perhaps to make up for lost time, and benefitting Cohen's new status, it was put out in a deluxe CD/DVD edition with informative liner notes and a generous set of photographs. A few people may have preferred separate CD and DVD editions, as with Cohen's Live in London from earlier in 2009, but most fans would have bought both and will appreciate the convenience - especially as the package costs little more than either would have alone. It is also nice compensation for what might otherwise seem inadequate: the concert is relatively short; the DVD lacks several songs; and sound/picture quality, while remarkable considering the equipment and the age of the tapes, are of course not up to current standards.

First I will review the CD, which has Cohen's whole show. Simply put, it is a fine performance that fans, especially of Cohen's early work, will love and appreciate. Those close to Cohen were worried that he would be heckled or even driven offstage as prior low-key performers had been, especially as he was in no hurry, but he remained calm and gave a mesmerizing performance. Against all odds, the crowd was supremely respectful, hanging onto every proverbial word - a true testament to the performance and perhaps to Cohen's droll, unhurried demeanor. He is calm, confident, and collected, calming the frenzied crowd into a near-trancelike state. Cohen played most of the best songs from his first two albums, including "Suzanne," and three as yet unreleased: "Diamonds in the Mine," "Sing Another Song, Boys," and "Famous Blue Raincoat." These were saved until near the end and doubtless greatly appreciated. Probably everyone will miss a favorite or two, but the selection is hard to fault. Anyone who likes Cohen's early live album Live Songs will surely like this significantly more, as selection is notably superior and performances more consistent. A breathtakingly intimate "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong" is the highlight for me, but others may have different preferences; there is really no weak performance.

A significant bonus is that, as is his wont, Cohen also recites several poems. His choices are short and humorous, and the crowd responds approvingly. Perhaps even more interesting, and certainly more valuable in being unique to the show, is Cohen's frequent trademark onstage banter. He has an unusual voice and way of speaking for a popular music performer; one can tell he was used to reciting poetry, which truly makes him stand out from the mindless shouting and crowd enticing of most festivals. He also has a generous, if offbeat, sense of humor. All this comes out in several stories and song introductions; the latter sometimes have interesting information but are also valuable in themselves as samples of Cohen's impromptu speech. Some of what he says may have been rehearsed, but it is delightful to hear talk specifically for this crowd. He makes several insightful comments showing he was both part of and well outside the dying hippie movement, including several subtle digs at its superficiality, and the crowd reacts with a curious mix of appreciation and ambivalent silence. Perhaps most memorably, Cohen throws in "I know there are a lot of Maoists and atheists out there, but..." during the repeated "You've won me, my lord" at the end of "Lady Midnight." Pushing such a hostile crowd so hard was a considerable risk, and we must admire the pure chutzpah. Cohen was apparently heckled only once, responding, "Are you calling me a fascist pig again?" The ensuing laughter deflated the potentially fatal situation, leaving him undisputed master of the crowd. Neophytes may be puzzled and/or turned off by Cohen's banter, but it will delight fans.

I have no real complaints about the performance, but a few quibbles that are essentially matters of taste will affect various listeners differently. For example, some nice lyric changes aside, the performances, in marked contrast to Cohen's latter-day approach, are generally quite similar to studio versions. This means arrangements are very minimalist - shockingly so for those used to Cohen's more expansive later renditions. Those not fully entranced by the words and/or Cohen himself may thus think the concert begins to get somewhat monotonous. However, this is true of his first four studio albums as well as his first live record; anyone who likes those will have no problem. Even so, one cannot help wondering why Cohen bothered having a band, especially such a large and prestigious one. Besides additional guitar, it features banjo, fiddle, electric bass, and other instruments, though notably no percussion. Hand-picked by legendary producer Bob Johnston - who appears on piano, organ, harmonica, and guitar against his better judgment but at Cohen's insistence -, it consists mainly of the day's best country session musicians. These players - including a pre-fame Charlie Daniels, a strange Cohen companion in many ways - were highly skilled and in great demand. Cohen was quite lucky to get them, and it seems a shame not to use them more. All songs are dominated by Cohen's acoustic guitar; several feature only it or very little else. When others do chime in it is usually only a musician or two at a time - ironically mostly Johnston, who contributes several fine organ fills and some other nice bits. The DVD shows that the band looks bored much of the time, as one might expect; they after all basically just watch Cohen like everyone else much of the time. They even seem occasionally restless, especially Daniels. Perhaps Cohen simply did not mesh well with them, despite the notes' claims. In striking contrast to his current tour, he does not seem to have much rapport with them, issuing commands gruffly and ignoring Daniels when he smilingly gets up and tries to play fiddle at Cohen's mic. As one might expect, the band has a very country sound when it does kick in; this works surprisingly well with Cohen's music and will be well appreciated by those who, like him, love country music. The band is quite good in these rare moments, making it easy to wish it had been used more. These are not really big issues musically; the minimalism keeps the focus on the words, where it should always be in Cohen, but he does seem waste some fine talent.

Also, though Cohen's signature emotion is ever-present and we can have no doubt that he pours his proverbial heart into each song as few singers can, his voice is more than usually off-key and seems to grow tired at times. He has of course never been a technical singer, which unfortunately scares many away from his great work immediately, but it is more than normally apparent here. The performance will certainly not will new converts, but this should be a non-issue for fans.

As for the DVD, it is of course great that we actually see Cohen perform, which is always interesting. However, unlike seemingly everyone else, I have some problems with the film as a film, though for admittedly subjective reasons. I personally hate ostensible concert films that intersperse documentary footage with performance. It is not that I fail to appreciate such footage; I indeed like it significantly, but it ruins the flow of the music for me. This film has relatively little of this but still does it occasionally. There is also not enough documentary footage; it would have been nice to have a lot more, as the concert is relatively short. There are short clips of recent interviews with Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Kristofferson, but they fail to say anything that is not already common knowledge or in the booklet. The absence of Cohen himself is also painfully felt; his long interview in the recent documentary I'm Your Man would seem to suggest he is not inaccessible, though he is certainly busy these days. As for the actual festival, the only footage is a short bit at the front of attendees talking about Cohen and a few very short crowd segments dispersed throughout the performance. The only interesting bit is Baez addressing the unruly crowd situation. Surely more footage could have been found. An entire documentary of the festival was made by the same director, and it would have been worth using some of it here if nothing new could have been unearthed. Those who have seen it might not care for the overlap, but a self-contained Cohen film would have been convenient. As always, I would have preferred to have all non-musical footage either before or after the performance or as extras.

Another problem is lack of camera angles; nearly the whole performance is a close-up of Cohen's face. This is indeed where the camera should be most of the time, but such ubiquity becomes monotonous. Close-ups of the band when it is playing would have been appropriate, and there should certainly be more crowd shots. This may have been unavoidable to a large extent. As Lerner decided to stay at a late moment, two of his three cameras were already put away. However, this is not really an excuse; one could easily say he should not have packed up, even if it is hard to blame him, and there should have been enough time in the long gap between the Hendrix and Cohen sets to get the cameras ready. Besides, and more fundamentally, he could have gotten more variety even with one camera. For example, he could have at least backed away from Cohen slightly so we could see his guitar; this is done a few times but not nearly enough. Lack of crowd shots is more understandable; it was dark, and Cohen himself frequently mentions that he cannot see the people, which surely made it all but impossible to get good shots.

More importantly, several songs are missing, as is some of the banter and all the poems. This is inexcusable if left out on purpose, as these segments are at least as good as those used and give some wished-for variety since "Diamonds," at least, features the band fairly heavily. It may be that these parts were never filmed or that the footage has been lost, though a few songs are heard or shown in fragments in the introduction. This is a significant defect, but the others are relatively minor, and all Cohen fans should enjoy the film; indeed, all seem to enjoy it rather more than me.

All told, this is a must for Cohen fans, especially those who particularly like his early work. Fans of later material may be somewhat underwhelmed, but this is a worthy and important performance from his early period and worth seeing just for its insight into this stage of his career and for historical value. No fan should be without it.

"

Poet, Mystic, Songwriter, Singer and Living Legend

Zarathustra | Sacramento, CA USA | 10/22/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have been listening to Leonard Cohen since 1967's Songs of Leonard Cohen. I have nine of his CDs on my shelf and 60 songs on iTunes plus 58 covers, which range from beautiful (e.g. Famous Blue Raincoat by Jennifer Warnes, an early backup singer) to wacky. It has been a common opinion through the years that Cohen does not have a good singing voice, hence the need for others to cover his songs. To which I reply: au contraire. Did Bob Dylan have a great voice? Well, no. But he was a great poet, songwriter, and singer. So is Cohen. It's true that his singing is sometimes off key, as was that of his compatriot Neil Young, but we forgive him for it.

Cohen never had the financial success of Dylan, but he is selling out concerts today at the age of 74. His recent DVD Live in London is a revelation. I have always avoided the concerts by has-been singers in their seventies that appear on PBS along with annoying sales pitches to buy the DVD for only $5 a month. But Live in London is different. He is like a wine that improves with age. He is deep.

This DVD from the Isle of Wight in 1970 gives a rare view of a young Cohen who had the power to inspire, heal and calm a large crowd that was out of control. You can see it in their faces."

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