Legendary singer-songwriter and alternative-nation poet laureate Leonard Cohen announced the details of the North American leg of his 2012 world tour today, including a show at HP Pavilion in San Jose Nov. 7.
That makes it three years almost to the day since his last performance at HP, on what was then suspected by many to be his farewell tour. But the 77-year-old Cohen, known best these days for his ’80s “comeback” songs like “I’m Your Man” and “First We Take Manhattan”—not to mention a zillion indie-rock covers of “Hallelujah”—hasn’t gone anywhere. He released his 12th album, Old Ideas, in January.
Anyone who saw his last, tour-de-force show at HP had to suspect as much. He opened by telling the audience “It is our intention to give you everything we got tonight,” and then immediately ripped into some of his best-known songs—“Dance Me to the End of Love,” “The Future,” “Bird on a Wire,” “Everybody Knows”—in rapid succession. He even seemed to joke about his supposed impending retirement when, in “I’m Your Man,” he changed the words to “If you want another kind of lover, I’ll wear an old man’s mask for you.”
The “Old Ideas World Tour 2012” begins Oct. 31 in Austin, after the completion of his European dates. He’ll play six shows in the U.S., including the San Jose show Nov. 7, before touring his native Canada and then winding up in Madison Square Garden Dec. 18 and Brooklyn Dec. 20.
Tickets for the U.S. dates go on sale May 18.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTTC_fD598A[/youtube]
.Leonard Cohen Announces U.S. Tour Dates, Plays HP Pavilion Nov. 7
