Aussie article re Canadian songwriters etc
On Dec17, Melbourne newspaper The Age presented its review of the year in music and I noticed some comments about Neil Young and Leonard Cohen overlooked Gord's place in Canadian music.
Chief music writer Patrick Donovan said:
The best gig was Neil Young at the Big Day Out. Who would have thought we would have the chance to witness Canada's two greatest singer-songwriters playing greatest-hits sets in outdoor settings in one glorious week last summer? While Leonard Cohen's sublime set at Rochford Winery was almost faultless, Young just gets the nod for his cranking Big Day Out set that included many Harvest classics and an epic version of Cowgirl In The Sand.
Entertainment Guide editor Jo Roberts said:
The best gigs early in the year were the Fleet Foxes, the Bad Seeds, Spiritualized, the Saints and the Reels. Then came the Canadian musical patriarchs in Leonard Cohen and Neil Young. The sight of the then 74-year-old Cohen skipping on and off the stage and the sound of every woman in the Rod Laver Arena collectively oohing when, in I'm Your Man, he sang "if you want a doctor, I'll examine every inch of you" was priceless. And what's not to love about cartwheeling backing singers? Neil Young's shows at Big Day Out and the Myer Music Bowl were simply incendiary. The man just keeps reinventing himself, but thankfully is happy to still play his classics.
Senior EG contributor Michael Dwyer said:
The best gig was Leonard Cohen at Rochford Winery, Yarra Valley, Jan24. The one thing missing from this near-religious experience was actually missed by nobody - the maestro's ego. With hat in hand, Leonard Cohen managed to deliver 40 years' worth of ecstatically uplifting non-hits like he was honoured to borrow them back from our collective consciousness. He didn't even write the lines he recited near the end to crystallise the timeless subtext of his work: "Through bitter searching of the heart, we rise to play a greater part."
Former EG deputy editor Kylie Northover said:
The best gigs were Spiritualized, Tex Perkins, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young.
Leonard Cohen at Rochford Winery - A mere gesture or a tip of his dapper hat set off raucous applause for Cohen as the legendary songsmith played to an appreciative crowd that supped wine and snacked on chicken sandwiches at this regional vineyard. The most respectable gig of the year, but one of the best. It was almost as if the flock of black cockatoos that flew overhead during Cohen's dusk rendition of Dance Me To The End Of Love was stage-directed.
Neil Young at the Myer Music Bowl - OK, it wasn't the early 1970s and it wasn't Crazy Horse, but it was Neil Young. In the Music Bowl, on a hot summer's night. Brilliant.
And EG contributor Andrew Drever said:
The best album of the year was Begone Dull Care by Canadian electro-pop duo Junior Boys.
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