The other night, on the 24th of September 2009 to be precise, Lihi (my life partner and the mother of my daughter) and I went to see Leonard Cohen in concert at Ramat Gan’s stadium near Tel Aviv.

It was an event neither of us will ever forget.
It wasn’t just that we went to celebrate the birth of our daughter Or there (the tickets were our treat to ourselves for becoming parents : ), it was the entire atmosphere of the evening.

The man somehow succeeded in granting the 50,000 people that came to hear him the feeling that we were all in some intimate jazz club, and Cohen, rather than was singing to a massive stadium was in fact just sharing the evening in the company of the most intimate circle of his closest friends.

Although he turned 75 this week, he gave a generous 3 hour concert, multiple encores, and ended by skipping off the stage in funky little dance steps : )

It was especially comforting as he had collapsed at a concert in Spain earlier this week and everyone here was kind off worried about him…

Leonard’s is legendary, so it was no surprise that to experience him was incredible but it was a real treat to discover how amazingly talented his band is.

The current ensemble features Sharon Robinson and the Webb Sisters (background vocals), Roscoe Beck (musical director & bass), Neil Larsen (keyboards & Hammond B3 accordion), Bob Metzger (electric, acoustic & pedal steel guitar), Javier Mas (bandurria, laud, archilaud, 12-string acoustic guitar), Rafael Gayol (drums, percussion), Dino Soldo (sax, clarinet, dobro, keys).

“Everything that’s beautiful is cracked, that’s how the light gets in” - Leonard Cohen

…to top it all off Leonard signed off with “Birkat Cohanim” - The traditional Jewish blessing that Cohens (the literal Hebrew word for “priests”) give unto the congregation.

By the way, Our daughter Or (Hebrew for light) has just turned 3 months old. Her favorite “soothing song” is Leonard’s - “Marianne” : )

Mike
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