Leonard Cohen received a hearty roar of appreciation very early on the three hour proceedings when he announced tonight we're going to give it our very best shot (or words to that effect).
I suspect provincial audiences are inclined to suspect a name performer might be tempted to phone it in when playing a relative small and relatively isolated venue.
Interestingly, I seem to recall that best shot remark from the show we saw in Brisbane just over three years ago.
The setlist wasn't all that different either. A couple of songs from the new album, some notable exclusions from the “extensive back catalogue”, but most of the classics were there, delivered in almost exactly the same sequence as a couple of shows I looked at on this setlist site.
He didn't do Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye or The Gypsy Wife, but he does from time to time.
Knowing I'd be tapping this out the following morning, I'd done that little bit of pre-concert research. Trying to keep notes in the darkness of a concert venue can be a pain, so I thought I'd do a bit of forensic work on the most recent shows I could find.
The result was a list of thirty-three tracks in what looked to be about the regular sequence, and the only two that failed to make the cut last night were the aforementioned two.
But Cohen shows are like that. You pays your money, and you gets an immaculately rehearsed three hours with plenty of instrumental solo work from the members of a handpicked ensemble assembled around one of contemporary music's most esteemed wordsmiths. You might question one of, but leaving it out would drop other favourites like Messrs Costello, Newman, Thompson and Zevon a little too far back in the pecking order.