As Cohen moves the spotlight from member to member you get the distinct impression that what he's saying has been carefully scripted, and it's more than likely much the same from night to night. But it works, and it's comfortably removed from the ladeez'n'gennelmen give it up for Fred Nurk on the bass sort of thing that seems to be more or less de rigeur show biz a la mode.
At the same time, it seems, there's some variation.
The second set opened, as anticipated, with Tower Of Song, with Cohen on the ancient keyboard and the three backing vocalists, but sans the da doo dum dum “I've discovered the secret of life” rap that featured in London and at the Beacon.
From there, the set-list, as anticipated, ran through Suzanne, Avalanche, Sisters Of Mercy, The Gypsy's Wife and The Partisan before the four song finale. Hallelujah, as expected, soared, I'm Your Man was delivered with a wryness that underlined the humour that lurks under Cohen's work and A Thousand Kisses Deep came as a spoken poem, totally without instrumentation, a change of pace before the swirling Take This Waltz closed out the main set.
Mileages vary when it comes to the whole encore routine, but even after two plus hours of on stage time, you know there's more to come, and there's always the question of how you conclude proceedings. You know, for a start, that the crowd's going to be on their feet applauding until the artist does something to wind things up.
First up, Cohen and band were back for So Long, Marianne and Famous Blue Raincoat and wound things up in uptempo mode with a surging First We Take Manhattan, where things could have come to a halt. If something intervened - a strict curfew with substantial penalties for example - a "Sorry, but we really have to go" would probably have sent the punters away reasonably happy.
The crowd, predictably, were on their feet again, and there's that wry sense of humour coming into play when they were back for I Tried To Leave You and while he's been known to throw in Ain't No Cure For Love in after Closing Time, that number makes an almost perfect sorry but that's all folks.