Seeing Leonard Cohen on his farewell world tour was a buzz for Tyrone Noonan. It was November 30, 2013, and Cohen, who died in 2016 at the age of 82, was doing a kind of global victory lap.
Noonan, who came to national attention when he and sister Katie were in the celebrated band george, reflects on how lucky he was to be at that last Cohen gig at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre.
He’s reflecting on that now because he’s a guest artist in Brisbane for Monsieur Camembert’s Cohen Noir, the acclaimed Leonard Cohen celebration concert.
For the past 15 years the production has been selling out Sydney’s most iconic venues and now it’s on the road. This acclaimed production celebrates the music, poetry and spirit of Leonard Cohen with breathtaking originality.
Presented by three-time ARIA Award winners Monsieur Camembert, the concert offers a thrilling and deeply moving reimagining of Cohen’s songs, brought to life with virtuosic musicianship.
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With a powerhouse eight-piece band and a choir, the show will have a stellar lineup of guest Brisbane vocalists including Karise Eden, Cass Eager, Tyrone Noonan and Angela Fabian when it comes to the Fortitude Music Hall on October 4.
Eden and Noonan have strong Leonard Cohen connections. Eden is famous for winning the first season of The Voice Australia in 2012, after which she topped the iTunes charts with her powerful rendition of Leonard Cohen classic, Hallelujah.
‘I pulled out Songs of Leonard Cohen and put it on and I heard Suzanne. It blew my mind’
As for Tyrone Noonan, who is a talented singer-songwriter across genres, he’s been a fan since his teens.
“When I was about 14 and wanting to expand my musical knowledge, my uncle let me raid his record collection,” Noonan recalls. “I pulled out Songs of Leonard Cohen and put it on and I heard Suzanne. It blew my mind. I was downstairs where I had a little room and my stereo. I went and grabbed my mum and said, listen to this! We were both transfixed.”
Suzanne was a huge hit for another Canadian, Judy Collins, in 1966 before Cohen debuted the song on his debut album in 1967.
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Noonan happens to be performing Suzanne in Monsieur Camembert’s Cohen Noir, as one of his two solos. The other song he’ll do is Who By Fire, a sombre, evocative tune based on a Jewish prayer from the Jewish High Holy Days (Yom Kippur).
It questions how and by what means people will face their death, listing a variety of potential fates from the divine, reflecting on life and mortality with poetic, densely layered imagery of fire, water and struggle.
Like a lot of Cohen’s work it is a bit dark. But that’s also part of his attraction as both a poet and songwriter. Cohen has had a bit of a revival recently following the excellent TV series So Long, Marianne, which chronicles his early career including the years on the Greek island of Hydra where he mixed with the Australian writers George Johnston and Charmian Clift, among others.
That series inspired my wife and I to visit Hydra recently and Leonard Cohen is back on my playlist and I’m loving it. Not sure why I stopped listening to him but I’m listening again now and I imagine there’s a whole new generation either just discovering him or waiting to discover him.
Monsieur Camembert’s Cohen Noir would be a good place to start. In the show Cohen’s timeless songs are reimagined in a vivid, musically adventurous setting.
A favourite audience moment is when they are surprised with Cohen’s own voice being woven through the performance, sharing his wit and poetry as Monsieur Camembert’s Yaron Hallis responds in spoken word creating a reflective dialogue between Cohen’s poetry and the live arrangements.
There’s an amazing array of musicians and even a Mongolian throat singer and horse hair fiddle player, Bukhu, a choir and those guest singers.
For Tyrone Noonan it’s an opportunity to pay homage, in a sense, to Cohen, although he’s not mimicking him. He says, however, that his voice is now better for doing Cohen songs than when he was younger.
Cohen purists be warned though – this show is an imaginative exploration of the songs and in there are some surprises. It’s Leonard Cohen … but not as you know him, with due reverence for one of the most unique artists of our times.
Monsieur Camembert’s Cohen Noir plays Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane, October 4, 8pm.