Leonard Cohen, April 10 at the Nokia Theatre

I got into Leonard Cohen's music in the '90s, and, even more oddly, through Trent Reznor's soundtrack to Natural Born Killers. I bought The Future years ago and always had it on as background music or late at night when I was doing something else and it never was completely my thing, other than the lyrics to "The Future" and maybe "Waiting for the Miracle" and I'm not sure why I never got rid of it (like I did the NBK CD) but over time it crept into my brain and stuck with me. The Cohen best-ofs are plentiful and I got a few so I had an overview of a chunk of his stuff. The announcement that he was playing Coachella '09 is as big a shock in concert announcements as I've ever gotten. He was the absolute top performer I wanted to see out there, so much that I didn't want to have to deal with a scheduling conflict or see a truncated performance so, luckily, as part of his tour he played L.A. the week before. I had a so-so ticket in the mezzanine of the Nokia Theatre but it was enough. I had never been to the Nokia Theatre but it was nicer than I thought it would be (after being disappointed by Club Nokia a few months before): the sound was good, the stage effects and lighting was excellent, and, similar to the Universal/Gibson Amphitheater, none of the seats were truly bad. But the real highlight was Cohen himself, at 75 performing like he was a third that age. By this age (older than any other performer I would see), he's got his show down to a science, backed by a crack band of professionals, in a set that was as spotless as the Nokia Theatre itself but certainly crowd-pleasing, for all the fans looking on in reverence and respect; if there weren't already fans there, Cohen would have won them over by charm alone. Of course most of the band were wearing fedoras and of course the back-up singers were hotties. The band was a little heavy on the Spanish guitar but that was only one interpretation of his music. The three-hour set (with an intermission in the middle. When was the last time I went to a show that had an intermission?) was also a crowd-pleaser, doing the more accessible stuff in the first half and the second half a bit more obscure, with Cohen himself playing a song on guitar then one on piano with only the back-up singers behind him, then building to the stuff that everyone should know in the encores, of which there were plenty, or at least it was with the band and Cohen interchangeably leaving the stage between songs, to gallop back to ecstatic audience response, usually in a standing ovation. Cohen spent much of the set armed with only a microphone and kneeling, like he was dedicating each song to the band, rarely facing the audience to sing to them, like a lover who was blinded by the object of his affection. Cohen is still in fine form and there's no reason he couldn't keep going until age 100. That he still connects with a crowd, perhaps even gaining an entire new generation of fans, enough to play Coachella, is a miracle in itself. But even Cohen admits that it's about his songs, covered a thousand times and loved more than a million times, that will go on past his life and the deep, dark croon that he's cultivated over the years and could never be matched by any peer. The story goes that Cohen was forced to tour after his manager stole millions of his money that was meant for retirement. Such a fate is a tragedy for a legend but his loss is our gain when he performs magic for us, which is more than we probably deserve.

Leonard Cohen's set:
"Dance Me to the End of Love"
"The Future"
"Ain’t No Cure for Love"
"Bird on a Wire"
"Everybody Knows"
"In My Secret Life"
"Who by Fire"
"Chelsea Hotel #2"
"Waiting for the Miracle"
"Anthem"
(intermission)
"Tower of Song"
"Suzanne"
"The Gypsy’s Wife"
"The Partisan"
"Boogie Street"
"Hallelujah"
"I’m Your Man"
"A Thousand Kisses Deep" (recitation)
"Take This Waltz"
(multiple encores)
"So Long, Marianne"
"First We Take Manhattan"
"Famous Blue Raincoat"
"If It Be Your Will"
"Democracy"
"That Don’t Make It Junk"
"Closing Time"
"I Tried to Leave You"
"Whither Thou Goest"