The Best Of The 2008-2010 Leonard Cohen World Tour
It’s been 18 months since Leonard Cohen last performed in concert, and it’s a bit less than two months until the 2012 Leonard Cohen Old Ideas World Tour begins – the perfect time to feast on the best of the 2008-2010 Leonard Cohen World Tour.
Where’s That Famous Blue Raincoat When You Need It?
Rather than a billboard and other promotion of the sort that has been featured in this The Best Of Tour series, today’s complementary offerings are photos – because as much as any theater marquee can be associated with a concert playing at that venue, the photo atop this post showing the deluge of rain falling on Leonard Cohen (who is on an ostensibly sheltered stage while the audience is unprotected from the skies) has become as identified with Leonard Cohen’s wet, wonderful Weybridge show.
The photographer, dorsetbays, who took the shots on this page and generously permitted them to be posted at Heck Of A Guy, summarizes the setting:
Leonard Cohen put on an amazing concert at the Mercedes Benz Arena, Surrey on 11 July 2009. The weather was atrocious, heavy rain and gale force winds, but the atmosphere was electric.
Leonard Cohen – Closing Time
Weybridge: July 11, 2009
“Closing Time” is an important and beloved Leonard Cohen song, and there will certainly be more than one performance of “Closing Time” in this The Best Of Tour series. This energetic rendition, however, delivered near the end of a 3+ hour concert held concurrently with a rainstorm surely qualifies for this distinction.
Webb sisters and Sharon Robinson work hard for the money
Closing Time – Wayward At Weybridge
That this performance captures a rare Cohen miscue manifests as a bonus rather than a detriment.
For an explanation of the error, I defer to mnkyface, whose post at LeonardCohenForum alerted me to the fun:
Mistake, and a slick recovery, happens after about 5:00 [in the video]. Leonard loses track of the fast chorus (missed you since our place got wrecked/gates of love they budged an inch/etc) and seems to think it’s pretty darn funny, as does Rafael Gayol. LC calls “where are we?” (I think) to the singers and I LOVE the way he gets back into it. What a pro. 
I didn’t even notice this the first time I watched it.
An Aside – The Advantages Of Being A Leonard Cohen Fan
Those of us who admire Leonard Cohen do so primarily, of course, because he writes and sings songs which resonate with the music of the cosmos, creating in us a profound capacity for love, a sense of awe when contemplating the universe, and joyfulness rampant in the face of adversity. We embrace our humanity, celebrate our mutuality with others, … .
One cannot, however, discount the value of belonging to one of the few groups who can, without fear of social censure, invite one another to enjoy watching (and re-watching) a 74 year old man, who has been singing, dancing, and skipping through a three hour show in an outdoor venue during what appears to be the sort of gale associated with small craft advisories, make a mistake in singing the lyrics of a song he wrote and has performed perfectly hundreds of times.
Watching Leonard Cohen Laugh At (With?) Leonard Cohen
The – oh, let’s not pretend it’s a mistake, let’s call it – “The Weybridge Variation” - The Weybridge Variation begins around the 5:00 mark.
The lyrics of the last verse follow, with the point where things go awry marked:
Oh the women tear their blouses off the men they dance on the polka-dots
It’s closing time
And it’s partner found, it’s partner lost
and it’s hell to pay when the fiddler stops
It’s closing time
I swear it happened just like this:
a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
It’s closing time
[This is where things start to slide, slide in all directions]
The Gates of Love they budged an inch
I can’t say much has happened since
But closing time
I loved you when our love was blessed
I love you now there’s nothing left
But closing time
I miss you since the place got wrecked
By the winds of change and the weeds of sex.
Leonard Cohen – Closing Time (Weybridge, July 11, 2009)
Uploaded by albertnoonan
oooh….so dripping wet and blowy as the evening went on…but a great and warm spirit amongst us all…x