Hommage: Leonard Cohen
Rialto, Montreal
December 15 2016
Pop Montreal organised a Montreal hommage to Leonard Cohen one month after his surprised death.
The hommage consisted of many poets and musicians from Montreal who were influenced by this famous poet and songwriter born in the city.
Leonard Cohen wrote some novels, poems and songs that touched and influenced so many people around the globe.
In a sold out Rialto, those artists and poets reinterpreted their favorites to an already sold crowd.
It wasnt a mourning evening, but it was a celebration of his life and creations.
The Congregation Shaar Hashomayim choir started the evening with a prayer "If it be your will".
This choir worked on the latest album, "You want it darker", from Leonard that came out only a few days before his death.
So that is why it was fitting for them to start and end the evening.
Some collaborators would be present throughout the evening as the house band like Li'l Andy who organized the night.
Emily n Ogden,the harp, did a really good rendition of the song "Hey, thats no way to say goodbye".
With such a lovely voice combined with her melodic harp playing it just couldnt go wrong.
I cant say the same of the offering from the poet Philip Tetrault who was mostly really bad and unorganised.
He tried to read a poem he wrote for Leonard, but kept hitting bumps while reading in English.
Then he tried to use his panpipes to play a song, but couldnt play them correctly and it felt more like a comedic act than anything else unfortunately for him.
Samito had prepared a song withh some great beats and the combination with the chorists and the violon amplified the positive result.
The voice was really smooth.
"Suzanne" was played by Lakes of Canada' Jake Smith and the Westmount synagogue choir.
The result was also really good with the beautiful voice of Jake.
Kathryn-Jezer Morton read a crazy poem that Leonard wrote about what the rivalries between French and English quebecois meant for him.
She said that she had "a lot of balls to read" this poem from the Beautiful Losers book.
I went to buy the book a few days later because of this poem.
The Barr Brothers singer came on stage after and told us how important Leonard was for him and his own songwriting.
He usually used Leonard's lyrics while making music to check if his songs were good and before he found his own lyrics.
He had two guitars on him and switched between them while playing a bluegrass version of the song "Tower of song".
He started playing the song with his banjo and the song drastically changed tempo when he switched to his guitar.
Marie-Pier Arthur came out of the chorists section and played a country version of her favorite song "So long, Marianne".
It was her birthday that night, but she couldnt miss this event, she said.
A friend of Leonard, Neema, was present to pay hommage and it was a touching moment.
She told us that Leonard was saying that "we all learn from somebody else and we do it our own way after" about anything he was playing.
Since she wasnt that fast to pick up parts, Leonard was always there to teach, do it, slowed it down to show her, but didnt know how he actually did himself.
She played alone in stage.
Other singers and poets came on stage and it was all good, but Kaie Kellough was really something else...
He used slam to read us a brief passage of Beautiful Losers book in which Leonard was experimenting with language.
It was splendid, fast and really hard to make sense of it all.
It was actually really breathtaking to listen to it.
Great night for a Canadian icon who died too fast after his best and latest album came out.
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