KEY POINTS:
He might have a reputation as one of music's most depressing figures. But Leonard Cohen left an arena full of fans happy - and not in a sad kind of way - with this long-awaited memorable concert.
Seventy-four-year-old Cohen and his nine-piece band delivered a spirited wander through his extensive songbook to a reverent and largely grey-haired audience who welcomed him on stage with a standing ovation and were reluctant to let him leave it three hours and many, many eloquent verses later.
Somehow, Cohen's ensemble, a sort of gypsy-soul rock-noir cabaret outfit dressed, as was their fedora-ed double-breasted leader like particularly stylish members of the French Resistance, were able to shrink the vastness of the venue down to the intimate scale of the music.
They were also able to inject an acoustic warmth into much of Cohen's 80s and 90s material which, on record, veers towards antiseptic muzak.
Everything pivoted on Cohen's baritone voice, that still sexy sonorous rumble which has long made him the Barry White of the bookclub set. Yes, unlike many a rock elder statesman, Cohen isn't just a guy thing.
He cut a dapper, spry figure throughout, kneeling where the songs' entreaties or his musicians' solo turns demanded it, and skipping on and off stage as the encores mounted.
And he was given to some self-effacing - if you suspect much-rehearsed - between song humour.
"It's been 15 years since I was on stage - when I was 60, a young kid with a crazy dream then I took a lot of Prozac," he quipped before listing the other medications which got him through his darker days. "I studied all the religions of the world but cheerfulness kept breaking through," he added.
And so it was with his set, which neatly wrapped up the key songs of his 40-plus years as the songwriter's songwriter, ladies' man and ribald wit.
"Give me crack and careless sex," he rumbled on the early The Future, before, a few songs later taking us to that scene in Chelsea Hotel #2 with the unmade bed and an obliging Janis Joplin.
Along the way he reclaimed the much-covered likes of Bird on a Wire, delivered with a punchy blues guitar and Hallelujah got an inevitable standing ovation, with Cohen resisting the urge to make it a centrepiece or obvious encore.
The energy dipped occasionally along the way and those multiple encores sure made no effort in leaving us wanting more.
But the occasional sense of languor was just as frequently leavened with solo turns by Javier Mas on 12-string bandurria and near the end, a magic moment by backing singers the Webb sisters who, after Cohen's spoken early verses, took If it Be Your Will somewhere celestial with their intertwined voices, guitar and harp.
At the end Cohen thanked the faithful "for keeping these songs alive", an admirable sentiment.
But he had returned the compliment, and then some, in a show which brought all those verses to life in all their literate glory.
This wasn't an old Laughing Len looking back in some nostalgia exercise, but Cohen the performer revealing the depths of his glorious songs. And doing it quite brilliantly.
