Friday 14/11/08 Leonard Cohen @ The O2 Arena, London

Having suddenly shed his reclusive attitude and performed a string of well reviewed gigs across Europe this summer, the godfather of gloom has returned to the capital to delight a packed arena with his “golden voice”.

Indeed, that voice, still more gravelly than 30 miles of loose road surface confirms this living legend has lost none of his charm or art through the years as he opens with a jazzy take on ‘Dance Me To The End Of Love’.

For the man to still be touring the world in his 70s is quite a feat in itself. Yet tonight something has clearly changed in the Cohen psyche. Because the man, famed for having all the humour of the grave, actually appears to be enjoying himself. Between flawless delivery of hit after hit, Cohen cracks jokes “I had to give up religion and medication. Cheerfulness kept breaking through”.   

Whatever has brought sunshine to his life is of no concern with performance like this. With songs spanning his career from the tender ‘Bird On A Wire’ to the more modern sounding, politically-edged ‘Berlin’, Cohen and his diverse and highly talented backing band role out a set so vast that the man has to have a 15 minute interval half way through.

While Cohen provides fantastic jazz and folk interpretations of all his songs, special places are reserved for the silver wear. ‘Marianne’ is rapturous, ‘Suzanne’ superb, and both get the huge response they deserve. And of course, the hallmark ‘Hallelujah’ is especially tender and simply sensational, possibly meaning more than ever from a man so close to saying his own hallelujahs.

After a seemingly endless string of encores (with Cohen skipping on and off stage between each) it’s obvious that Leonard Cohen has finally come to enjoy life and the songs that he has written that have touched so many. While he may quip about his age and how “14 years ago I was 60. I was just a crazy kid with a dream”, his performance is that of a man with an amount of youthful energy that some don’t have at a third of Cohen’s age. How much longer this might be the case cannot be guessed at. For those who were lucky enough to witness it though, it is definitely a performance not to be forgotten.