I was most distressed to read that Leonard Cohen fainted on stage in Spain. Found the incident on youtube and here it is:
Not as disturbing and dramatic as I thought it would be, but upsetting nonetheless.
I remember so vividly when, as a kid, Leonard Cohen first entered my life. The Beatles had disbanded and "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I got love in my tummy." was top of the hit parade, and I hated everything new around. It was all so empty, stupid and vacuous. "Music is dead!" I thought.
But then, one evening at the Boom Boom Room in Pacific Harbour, Deuba, Fiji, I went to a small concert by new Fiji band "Sunny and Skee", and, oh boy, total, total MAGIC! Torch songs mainly, with Skee on a piano and Sunny singing. Yes, Sunny could "catch you on fire" with that voice, but the songs, the songs, the songs! Poignancy ached in every word. And the third set was practically orgasmic.
After the concert I approached them and told them their "original songs" in the third set were the best I'd ever heard and they both laughed and said "That was just a medley of Leonard Cohen songs!"
"Who?"
And that's when I first heard of Leonard Cohen.
They lent me his records and it was instant LOVE! And it's stayed that way ever since. Keith, at the beginning, used to say "It's music to slit your wrists by!" but he's since become an enormous fan and we have EVERYTHING Leonard has ever done, and we play him constantly too, and, considering how Keith has walls and walls of CDs - he's a real music buff - it's the ultimate compliment.
And then, only about four years ago, Baby Jane was complaining about how vacuous music had become, and how she was on a hunt for "authentic", so I said "Why don't you get the 'Best of Leonard Cohen' that's just come out?"
"Who?"
I couldn't believe it. Had I really been so quiet about my passion for Leonard that my baby sister hadn't heard of him? Anyway, I lent her all the CDs that I had in Townsville and, yes, Jane, I've noticed I haven't got them back.
She too is now totally in love, and her all-time favourite song is definitely "Dance me to the End of Love.":
And she went all the way down to Brisbane to see him in this latest concert tour and said it was the BEST concert she's ever been to. Total MAGIC!
She bought the DVD of the concert so she could share the magic with us, but that just made it worse. I was already consumed by envy, and seeing what I'd missed was horrendous, and so I can't wait for him to come to Hong Kong.
So it's really most distressing that ... well, he appears to have health issues! Get better Leonard. Whatever it is, get better!
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Bula beautiful Denise,
Re the Boom Boom Room
Glad to see someone liked my part invention the Boom Boom room at Pacific Harbour’s Beachcomber Hotel in the late 1970’s.
Michael Hickey (my resort director ex Fiji and Hawaii) and I developed the idea and then built the room from the few assets we had at the resort. We converted the only and very small Function Room to the Boom Boom Room. You may recall we only had beer and a very limited alcohol and soft drinks available. The idea was developed from Mike’s description of the Boom Boom Room in Hawaii and “Fijianized”. You may recall how small the dance floor was and the bar.
Oh well those were the days.
It was a success and we made some money from it for the Resort and provided the whole area with a decent night club environment. Of course we had guest bands from time to time and the noise was not pleasant for those in the rooms nearby. Be well –Loloma Tony S.
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