Leonard Cohen at the Chicago Theatre
After being inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2008, Leonard Cohen could have announced that he was retreating back to the Zen Buddhist monastery in California where he spent half of the '90s. No one would have begrudged the now 74-year-old songwriter/poet/prince of wryness for living out his remaining days in solitude.
Instead, Cohen announced a massive new tour—his first in 15 years—and was soon jetting around North America, Europe, and Australia. He visited Chicago this week for a pair of shows at the Chicago Theatre, and the venue’s baroque opulence would seem like an odd setting for a man whose brooding music is more meditation than celebration, more confession booth than choir. But then, Cohen has always been a paradox: The literate brilliance of his music’s world-weary melancholy has made people happy for 40 years. He was a hesitant star, wanting to stand apart from “the figures of beauty” (as he called celebrities in “Chelsea Hotel”) even as he became one.
On Wednesday night, Cohen was rapturously greeted by a standing ovation the moment he walked onstage. So began a three-hour concert that delivered all the goods any diehard Cohen fan could ask for. It was a career retrospective (with hits from "Hallelujah" to "A Thousand Kisses Deep") that never crossed into canned indulgence because Cohen’s band beautifully breathed new life into old, spare songs (“Suzanne,” most notably).
Songs aside, the brilliance of Cohen’s performance was that he somehow retained his arch wryness while being the consummate showman. His gentle, exquisite theatrics—kneeling to sing many songs prayerfully, taking his hat off during applause—were balanced by deadpan banter. "Excuse me for not dying," Cohen memorably told the packed hall a few minutes after joking he had spent the 15 years since his last Chicago performance doing Prozac and Paxil. That graciousness spilled into the multiple encores, which offered more fan service.
His final song of the night was "I Tried To Leave You" from 1974's near perfect New Skin For The Old Ceremony—as if to suggest Cohen needed his audience as much they needed him. Who knew he was such a romantic showman? When he closed the evening with a simple note of gratitude—"Thank you for keeping my songs alive"—the room erupted at his humility.
