It seems all is a-buzz about Leonard Cohen. After the 75-year-old songsmith’s massive world tour over the past two years drew rave reviews, the Canadian folk legend has occupied a considerable share of the public consciousness as of late. Fittingly, now Sony Legacy has finally unveiled Cohen’s fabled set at the Isle of Wight festival of 1970. Presented as a live CD/DVD package, Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 serves to reinforce Cohen’s history of acclaim and inform his contemporary success.
Recorded at the third annual Isle of Wight festival in front of a staggering crowd of 600,000, Cohen and his band (affectionately called His Army) calmly take the stage at four in the morning and proceed to woo a once angry mob into peaceful submission. Cohen shambles to the microphone unkempt and unfazed at Wight less than a year after releasing his second successful LP Songs from a Room and in his rich, high baritone enchants his doting audience with an awe-inspiring mix of perfectly melancholic music and cryptic, darkly humorous anecdotes. Is he aloof or just artistic? Frankly, it doesn’t matter because it resonates. Joan Baez puts it best in the DVD portion: “When people think that a song has to make sense, Leonard would prove otherwise. It doesn’t necessarily make sense at all; it’s just coming from so deep inside of him that it somehow or other touches deep inside of other people,” and that connection is so vivid in these recordings. Moments like the first chorus of Cohen’s background singers on “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” or the noisy Appalachian ramble of “Tonight Will Be Fine” or the way he draws out the first three words of opener “Bird on the Wire” elucidate the impact of this poet and songwriter in English folk music tradition.
And that’s the real attraction here: the chance to glimpse a bygone era—a phenomenon of time, place and expression—through Lerner’s film. With his lens, Academy Award winning documentarian Murray Lerner captures a darker, more violent side of the flower generation in festival goers who demonstrate their dissatisfaction with capitalist promoters through acts of vandalism. Fences are trampled; musicians are harassed off stage; even the stage itself burns. And just as phenomenally, Cohen turns it all to dust. Live at the Isle of Wight 1970’s concert footage is coupled with interviews of fellow performers and longtime collaborators that offer a unique perspective on Cohen’s legacy, making the DVD a treasure for diehard collectors and casual fans alike. The live CD has its undeniably special moments as it captures the entire Cohen performance uncut (and replete with squelches of feedback and Cohen’s characteristic banter) from beginning to end, but by itself it might best be suited for the fanatical devotee. However, Lerner’s documentary film seals the deal, and together the two create a package hard to deny.
Stephen B. Griggs – MuzikReviews.com Contributor
November 18, 2009
