As legend has it, nearly 40 years ago on August 31, 1970, a 35-year-old Leonard Cohen was awakened at 2 a.m. from a nap in his trailer and brought onstage to perform with his band at the third annual Isle Of Wight music festival. The audience of 600,000 was in a fiery and frenzied mood, after turning the festival into a political arena, trampling the fences, setting fire to structures and equipment - and stoked by the most incendiary performance of Jimi Hendrix's career.How would you like to be the act that had to follow that?
But Cohen was up to the task. Onlookers and (fellow festival headliners) Joan Baez, Kris Kristofferson, Judy Collins and others stood sidestage in awe as the Canadian folksinger-songwriter-poet-novelist quietly tamed the crowd. His understated, near monotonous baritone struck deep into the crowd, striking a collective nerve deep within their chests.
The CD captures Cohen's complete performance, and all the tracks are previously unreleased (sans bits of "Suzanne" which were featured in the documentary Message to Love). Included are live, definitive versions of classic songs from the first two Leonard Cohen LPs: "So Long, Marianne," "The Stranger Song," "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye," "Suzanne," "Bird On The Wire," "You Know Who I Am," and "The Partisan" as well as spoken word and poetry.
Just listen to the plaintive honesty in Cohen's rendition of "Hey That's no Way to Say Goodbye," or the tender fragility of "Suzanne, " and it becomes immediately apparent why Cohen was already a budding legend.
This CD/DVD package also contains the new, beautiful film documentary by Lerner featuring interviews with fellow festival performers, and vividly captures Cohen's performance.
Also available as a double vinyl LP
Buy here: Live At The Isle of Wight (CD/DVD)
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