Leonard Cohen In Paris – Onstage At The Olympia
France has a thing for Leonard Cohen, as Cohen himself pointed out in a 1984 interview with Robert Sward:
My work has been well received in France. One of the reasons is that they have a tradition that my work fits into. They like to hear that battle in the voice. They want to hear the real story. The well-known ones are Brassaens and Brel, but they have hundreds of such singers. They don’t have a preconception of what the voice should be. So my songs have struck home there.
The French cultural predilection for Cohenphilia is also evident in item #66 on Tim de Lisle’s “Hallelujah: 70 Things About Leonard Cohen At 70“ 1 is
Cohen was much admired in 1960s France. The president, Georges Pompidou, was reputed to take his LPs on holiday, and it was said that if a Frenchwoman owned one record, it was likely to be by Cohen.
And the Olympia, founded in 1888 by Moulin Rouge creator, Joseph Oller, has been a special venue for Leonard Cohen since he first appeared there May 12, 1970. The Paris Olympia Theater has been the site of historic, unparalleled performances by Édith Piaf and Jacques Brel, star turns by musicians from the Beatles to the Grateful Dead to Hendrix to Lady Gaga, and miscellaneous entertainments, including ballets, circuses, and movies. The Leonard Cohen World Tour concerts at the oldest music hall in Paris on November 24, 25, and 26, 2008 rate in the first rank of those performances.2
So, when I happened onto this video clip from one of those 2008 shows featuring Leonard Cohen’s “Don’t stop” commentary complemented by Sharon Robinson & the Webb Sisters singing the Do dum dum dum, de do dum dum … refrain from “Tower Of Song” and heard Cohen’s felicitous phrase, “Yes, you [the backup singers] are toying with perfection,” I realized the perfect post for today was a return to Paris to relive a few minutes of the 2008 Olympia shows.
Leonard Cohen, Sharon Robinson, & The Webb Sisters
Video from justanothercrazyfan2
Leonard Cohen – Democracy (Paris Olympia, 11/24/2008)
Video from albertnoonan
Leonard Cohen – I’m Your Man (Paris Olympia, 11/24/2008)
Video from albertnoonan
Leonard Cohen – The Partisan (Paris Olympia, 11/26/2008)
Video From pasaero73
Leonard Cohen – Final Words (Paris Olympia, 11/26/2008)
Video from rebuber
What is in his hand in the poster? Looks like prayer beads, but I’m not aware of any Jewish tradition for that. In Jordan, you can buy prayer beads on the street, you have to count the beads to determine what religion. I think the Moslem ones are 33 with 3 larger beads for the shahada, and the Christian ones maybe forty. You can buy prayer beads in India too, someone told me they had 99 beads, but I’m not sure if they are Hindu or Buddhist. In Nepal you always see the Buddhists spinning a prayer wheel.
Oh, and I just noticed some sort of small clip on the points of the collar behind his tie.
This image looks so French to me.
The beads are from a komboloi (roughly translated as worry beads). Leonard Cohen has used them since he lived on Hydra.
Think Dominique Isherman was also in attendance.