Heck Of A Guy

Leonard Cohen Live In Israel DVD

Guy Tal, AKA TGuy (no relation to DrHGuy), recently posted this notice at LeonardCohenForum and has graciously permitted its reproduction here at Heck Of A Guy:

Dear Friends,

Leonard’s concert in Israel felt to me to be very special and, I dare suggest, seemed also to resonate deeply with Leonard.

I have been fortunate to attend two other concerts – Prague and Olympia (2008) – and while always struck with the effort and attention of Leonard and the Band, I feel he delivered in spades on his promise in Tel Aviv “We’ll give you everything we’ve got tonight”.

So it is with this feeling that I watched the wonderful videos from Tel Aviv so generously shared (to the recorders and up-loaders of which I am grateful) and when I realized that videos of almost the entire concert were available – I was compelled to collect and edit the most complete rendition of the concert that I could manage.

I did not think that this endeavor would take the better part of my nights for two months straight – although I admit that frustration only very rarely appeared.

So this is my imperfect offering, which I hope you will enjoy: http://www.myotherdrive.com/dyn/ls/171.272007.02122009.20352.6a65dy/Leonard+Cohen+Live+In+Israel+DVD

[DrHGuy Note: If that long URL proves unwieldy, try Cohen In Israel Download]

Technical and Other Notes:

There are two DVD’s – No. 1 – First Set; No. 2 – Second Set & Encores.

Each DVD is available as a disk image file (IMG) split into four compressed RAR files, for easier downloading.

Please note that all four parts of a DVD have to be downloaded befor un-archiving that DVD.

Also available are more compressed MOV file versions, without benefit of the quality and menus of the DVD format.

In compiling and editing the DVD I was guided by, and my “artistic” choices were made, in keeping with these objectives and principles (in order of importance) – originality, completeness, sound quality, video quality, consistency.

With this in mind, I would note the following:

• There were no complete enough videos from Tel Aviv of “In My Secret Life” and “Closing Time” and these songs have been substituted by videos from the concert in Barcelona only three days before, on Leonard’s 75th birthday.

• Sound (only) of “Waiting for the Miracle” is taken from another concert, because of very audible talking all the way through in both the original videos that were available. Other than a slight sync problem at the beginning of the song, Leonard seems amazingly consistent in his delivery and for that reason the transplanted sound is hardly noticeable as such.

• Sound for the second half of “Boogie St.” is also taken from a different concert, because of unavailability of the original. Some of the video images in this second half, although of Sharon’s Tel Aviv “Boogie”, do not actually match the audio, for the same (un)availability reason.

• My apologies for the sound quality at the very end of Leonard’s band introduction in “Take This Waltz”, this was the only footage available. Unlike “Miracle”, here Leonard is less consistent in the timing of his introduction of each Band Member (probably also because of differing audience reactions) – so the attempt to replace this with better audio from another concert was abandoned.

• I could have done without most of the talking / commentary / individual sing-along by the audience, security personnel and food vendors (the cries offering beer from time to time were especially annoying) and which I avoided where possible. But I love the woman muttering “Oh my God” during Leonard’s intro to “Anthem” (when Leonard says “So, ring the bells…”).

• This may only be of interest to me, but you may as well know that the font used for the names of the songs in the menus is “Helvetica”, which I believe is the font used in printing the original concert setlists.

Credits:  Video / Audio – nana10 / yosmusic / tuviamilkycat / yoavarden / TaliaE / eladiiy / albertnoonan / hannir2 /13Sierra / Kwistax1 / ASAFICO99 / shegh / mayormyq / EddieElad / illanaaron / TovaTre / kilkulo / yonatmor / daver667 / anatni / MajorTom2oo1; Photos – Hen Altof / Edi Israel.

Re-visiting The Leonard Cohen Tel Aviv Concert

The announcement about this DVD prompted me to review some of the materials about and from the Tel Aviv concert. To those like-minded, I recommend these posts from the extensive Heck Of  A Guy coverage of the event:

• Leonard Cohen Tel Aviv Concert – Photos Of Sold-Out Ramat Gan Stadium
• Leonard Cohen Performs In Tel Aviv Stadium Lit By 55,000 Green Flares
• A Concert-Goer’s Perspective On Leonard Cohen’s Priestly Blessings At The Tel Aviv Concert
• The Leonard Cohen Tel Aviv Concert – A Personal Report & Perspective
• The Legacy Of Leonard Cohen’s Tel Aviv Priestly Blessing Plus A New Video Of The Event

How To Burn The DVD

There is nothing especially difficult about burning a DVD of this sort – once you’ve done it once.  As is true of so many activities, however, the first time can be tricky.

So, here’s DrHGuy’s Extraordinarily Thorough, Easy, Step By Step Method For Burning The Leonard Cohen Live In Israel DVD (which comes with no guarantee other than it worked for me):

Software needed:

1. Archive utility capable of extracting RAR files (see Step #4 for explanation)
2. DVD burning program capable of burning ISO files (see Step #6 for explanation)

Steps:

1. Make two folders named something like “Leonard Cohen Live In Israel DVD-1″ and “Leonard Cohen Live In Israel DVD-2″

2. Into the first folder (“Leonard Cohen Live In Israel DVD-1″ ), download the first four  files found at Cohen In Israel Download:

• Leonard.rar
• Leonard(2).rar
• Leonard(3).rar
• Leonard(4).rar

3. Into the second folder (“Leonard Cohen Live In Israel DVD-2″ ), download the fifth through eighth files found at  Cohen In Israel Download:

• Leonard(5).rar
• Leonard(6).rar
• Leonard(7).rar
• Leonard(8).rar

4. Extract the RAR files.

The four files ending with the  “rar” suffix  in each folder will combine when extracted to form a single file holding the contents of one DVD.  To extract these, an archive utility that works with rar files is required. There are several suitable freeware programs. Two popular options are Izarc and 7-zip, both of which I’ve used without problems.

Once such a program is installed, extraction is simple:  open any rar file in one folder and click on “extract.” The archive program will automatically combine all four files in the folder, regardless of which file is extracted first. Once the files are extracted, the folder should contain the four rar files and one file named either “Leonard Cohen DVD1.img”  (in the “Leonard Cohen Live In Israel DVD-1″ folder) or “Leonard Cohen DVD2.img” (in the “Leonard Cohen Live In Israel DVD-2″ folder).  Then, repeat the process (i.e., open any rar file in one folder and click on “extract”)  for the other folder.

The archive program may produce a message indicating “File is broken,” but if there is a 4,042,464 KB  file named “Leonard Cohen DVD1.img” and a 4,220,768 KB file named “Leonard Cohen DVD2.img,” that message can be ignored.

5. Rename “Leonard Cohen DVD1.img” to “Leonard Cohen DVD1.iso” and rename “Leonard Cohen DVD2.img” to “Leonard Cohen DVD2.iso” This step may not be necessary for all DVD burning programs, but it was for mine and shouldn’t cause a problem regardless of the program used. To rename the files, click once on the file, hit “F2″ and keyboard in the necessary changes.

6. Burn each of the resulting ISO files onto separate DVDs, i.e., burn “Leonard Cohen DVD1.iso” on one DVD and “Leonard Cohen DVD2.iso” on a second DVD. The DVD burning program must be able to handle ISO files but most programs do so (I used a program called Power2Go simply because it came installed on my machine). Be sure to select the “Burn ISO” option (specific names of this option vary among programs). If your program will not burn these files, a number of freeware ISO-burning programs (with instructions) can be downloaded at http://iso.snoekonline.com/iso.htm

7. Label the DVDs.

8. Enjoy.