Len
I went to see Leonard Cohen last night. It was at the Cardiff International Arena(CIA) which unlike its namesake seems unlikely to have been involved in any third world military coups. It was a wet evening and I was soaked by the time I met my friend outside the venue. We had lunched at my mothers earlier and he had taken the train into town to explore Cardiff. He had stepped in dog shit on the way to the station - which was unfortunate - though the rain had washed it all off by now.

For a while I stood contemplating buying a tour t-shirt. They were £20 and had a picture of Len with his hat and suit.
"I want one that will look cool", I said
"He'll be dead soon", said my friend.
"Oh - I suppose that'll be cool", I grinned.
"I think I'll save my money and get one at Nick Cave in a couple of weeks. " I said. "He always looks cool."

The concert was great. Leonard played for three hours with a 15 minute break. He was gracious in his praise for the audience and the other musicians and I loved the way he took his hat off at the end of each song and smiled as we applauded. I thought the atmosphere was a bit flat as people were incredibly well behaved - staying in our seats and not singing much. The most frustrating thing for me was to do with taking videos. I wasn't sure which songs to record so I started with a lot of songs and stopped if it wasn't one I wanted. The second set started with Tower of Song - one of my favourites. I got the whole thing. It was great - he did loads of adlibbing and chat. Later I decided I needed to delete a couple of earlier songs to allow room for one of the encores. I accidently deleted Tower of Song. Gutted!.

We ran for the last train and made it by a minute. My friend said that his set was better at Glastonbury.