Leonard Cohen - Live 1972

When it comes to early live Leonard Cohen with excellent sound quality, there isn't very much. I've posted one "must have," the BBC show from 1968. Another "must have" is the 1970 Isle of Wight concert. I'm not going to post that here because it's been released as an album, and there's nothing wrong with it. There's some more great live material from 1972. I'm combining all of that here, creating an album I simply call "Live 1972."

There are two major sources for this. One is the album "Live Songs," which was released in 1973. But there are a number of problems with that album, in my opinion. It's a collection of songs from a bunch of concerts in 1972, as well as two songs that date to 1970. Those 1970 songs ("Please Don't Pass Me By" and "Tonight Will Be Fine") don't belong. I've put them on a stray tracks album that I'll post here later. One of the 1972 songs ("Queen Victoria") is actually a studio recording that also doesn't belong. That also will go on a stray tracks album.

So that leaves just the live songs that actually date from 1972. Those are all nice performances, with excellent sound, so I've kept all of them. But I've reordered them (and everything else on this album) by the dates they were recorded. Also, they have a minor problem in that they either end with no clapping or only a couple of seconds before a quick fade out. For this blog, I've often removed the audience noise at the end of songs. But in this case, I've done the opposite. Using audience noise from songs later in this album, I've extended the audience response so it's more like five seconds instead of just one or two. It makes a big difference in terms of reminding you that these actually are live recordings.

I've also found one song of indeterminate origin, "Kevin Barry." This is an anti-war song written by someone else. Somehow, an excellent recording of this has appeared on YouTube. I don't know which concert it's from, but it's known that Cohen only played it six times in public in his entire career, all in April 1972, so it has to be from then.

That leaves the other major source for this album. There's only one known bootleg soundboard recording of Cohen from 1972. It comes from a controversial concert he did in Tel Aviv, Israel, on April 19, 1972. Only about forty minutes of the concert has emerged at soundboard quality, so I've used that. Due to a great stroke of luck, none of the songs from it are the same songs as the 1972 "Live Songs" ones, so the two sources compliment each other well.

Unfortunately, this recording starts about a minute and a half into "Famous Blue Raincoat." I've attempted to fix this by using another bootleg version from Stockholm, Sweden, on April 3, 1972. That version is from a TV show, and it sounds pretty good, except there's a lot of distortion when the bass comes in. You'll probably notice the difference when the soundboard version comes in midway through the first chorus. But I figure it's better to have it that way than half half the song missing or not include it at all.

I don't know how many songs were played prior to that one. (It's possible "Kevin Barry" actually comes from earlier in the show, which would make sense in terms of matching sound quality.) Anyway, the concert continued as normal for a while. One thing worth noting is that it contains a version of "Chelsea Hotel No. 1." Note that's "No. 1," not the much more famous "No. 2" version. This version has fairly different lyrics, and also a musically different chorus.

But there was a big problem with this concert that would lead to a big problem. For some strange reason, Cohen got booked to play a sports arena, the Ramat Gan Stadium, where lots of basketball games were played. The venue had just put in a new hardwood floor, and they didn't want a bunch of scruffy music fans to scuff it up by walking on it. Thus, the audience of six thousand was forced to sit around the central floor, as if watching a basketball game, and leave a large area in front of the stage totally empty. There were no real barriers, so to make enforce this, a large number of orange clad security forces were employed to keep the audience off the floor.

Cohen didn't like this at all. Because it was night, he couldn't see any of the audience except the security forces. Partway through the show, he ad-libbed a short song aimed at those security people, which has come to be known "Song to the Machines."

That went over well with the crowd. But apparently, all the while, more and more fans were coming down to the hardwood floor, and getting pushed back by the security forces, sometimes violently. Finally, things reached a breaking point, with a large number of people rushing the stage, overwhelming the security. You can hear this happening towards the end of this album. (Furthermore, if you watch the movie "Bird on a Wire," a documentary of Cohen's 1972 tour, you can see the footage of it happening at the start of the movie.) Cohen responded by singing the traditional protest song "We Shall Not Be Moved," which was very fitting, given the situation. However, when that song was over, there still was a stand-off, so he decided to end the concert early instead of possibly having more violence.

So that's a pretty weird concert that just happens to be recorded at soundboard quality! I suppose it, and many others from the tour were recorded for the "Bird on a Wire" documentary, but only that one has leaked out so far. Anyway, the bottom line is this makes for a nice concert album that's an hour and 15 minutes long. I recommend putting your copy of "Live Songs" aside and listen to this instead.

After this music from 1972, the next really excellent sounding live Cohen recording comes from 1976. I'll post that eventually. But between this, the 1968 BBC concert, and the Isle of Wight concert, you should have live versions of most of the really good songs from his first albums.

01 Minute Prologue (Leonard Cohen)
02 Passing Through (Leonard Cohen)
03 Seems So Long Ago, Nancy (Leonard Cohen)
04 Story of Isaac (Leonard Cohen)
05 You Know Who I Am (Leonard Cohen)
06 Bird on the Wire (Leonard Cohen)
07 Improvisation [Instrumental Version of You Know Who I Am] (Leonard Cohen)
08 talk (Leonard Cohen)
09 Kevin Barry (Leonard Cohen)
10 Famous Blue Raincoat [Edit] (Leonard Cohen)
11 Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (Leonard Cohen)
12 talk (Leonard Cohen)
13 Song to the Machines (Leonard Cohen)
14 talk (Leonard Cohen)
15 Sisters of Mercy (Leonard Cohen)
16 Chelsea Hotel No. 1 (Leonard Cohen)
17 Avalanche (Leonard Cohen)
18 talk (Leonard Cohen)
19 Suzanne (Leonard Cohen)
20 talk (Leonard Cohen)
21 We Shall Not Be Moved (Leonard Cohen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15603181/LeonardC_1972_Liv972_atse.zip.html

The cover art comes from a Cohen concert in 1972, but I don't know which one.