Barcelona, 17th November 1980

He performed at the Palau Municipal d'Esports, ugly and inappropriate place where all important concerts and events were celebrated in this period.

The band:
Mitch Watkins, guitar, keyboards, vocals
Roscoe Beck bass
Steve Meador, drums
Bill Ginn, keyboards
Raffi Hakopian, violin
John Bilezikjian, oud, mandolin
Paul Ostermeyer, flute, saxophone
Sharon Robinson, vocals

Part of the band were The Passenger with a very full sound powered by Raffi Hakopian and John Bilezikjian. Roscoe Beck and Sharon Robinson, key musicians for Leonard, they will return for the Barcelona tour in 2009 and 2012. Jennifer Warnes did not come for agenda reasons.

Setlist

We can consider as the late presentation of Recent Songs, but from this great album only he sang The Gypsy's Wife and The Window.

At first Cohen seemed concerned about the acoustics and for performance in front more than 1,000 people, we were 7,000, but soon everything started to work perfectly. He talked in French and English.

Sharon Robinson performed a wonderful Joan Of Arc, though Julie Christensen is very special to me.

The second part ended with Memories on crooner style, microphone in hand and passionate. Introduced the band and said good night with buenas noches.

As encore, he performed Sisters of Mercy, Tonight Will Be Fine, Lady Midnight and I Tried To Leave You another introduction of the band and "buenas noches my darling." We still get a Bird On The Wire reciting the first verse in French, my recorder exhausted the batteries before finishing this last song. Historic.

Leonard chained at the bottom of the pool

Interview to Leonard Cohen by Ángel Casas for Musical Express after the concert at the backstage of the Palau Municipal d'Esports.

Interview in French dubbed to Spanish, this is my transcription:

Àngel Casas presentation: We are going to offer you a report about a man who was born in the year 34 in Montreal who is a poet and novelist, as well as a singer who wrote a series of poetry books before deciding to sing and that his first album "The Songs of Leonard Cohen" had a great impact.

Take of the concert: fragment of Bird on the Wire.

Àngel Casas: It was full of lights after the concert, full of lighters… and going out again to sing, nice, right?
Leonard Cohen: Oh... For me, seeing the small fires are like seeing the stars in the sky, it is wonderful I would like everyone to see it from the stage because it is something that cannot be explained.
AC: Tonight you have sung a lot, why? Is it because the public asked for it?
LC: Because the public wanted it, yes.
AC: Do you like to sing a lot?
LC: For such an audience, yes.
AC: You know that you are well known in Spain.
LC: No, I didn't think it was that much, I knew that there were people who knew me, but, but not that much.
AC: I know that you have a daughter and her name is Lorca, is it because of Federico?
LC: Yes, it is because of Federico García Lorca.
AC: You know the poetry of García Lorca well.
LC: Yes, he was the first poet who impressed me and when my daughter was born I gave her his name.
AC: And when she asks: Why is my name Lorca?
LC: I'll explain it to her; I'll show him the poems, even though she's only six years old now.

Ángel Casas is a journalist and music critic, he directed Musical Express (1980-1983), in 1980 for the Circuit Català TVE, the unique television at that time. In 1984 he joined TV3 at the beginning of Catalan public television. (The context: it was a time of change, from a dictatorship we passed to the current fake democracy without justice).

Right now (2021) Ángel Casas has serious health problems. Both TV3 and TVE have produced tribute programs. I have clipped the video from: Tesoros de la tele, especial Ángel Casas (2021) (Thank you so much Chema for keeping me informed of so many things).
Maybe the video we have is part of the broader interview and there are more shots of the concert. If so, I hope to see it someday. In 1988, TVE recorded the entire concert in San Sebastián.

Alberto Manzano wrote in the book “Leonard Cohen. Canciones y nuevos poemas vol. 2” (1986): A new European tour that begins in Besançon, on October 24, and concludes with two concerts in Tel Aviv, on November 24, this time brings Cohen to Spain: San Sebastián (Nov. 16) and Barcelona (Nov. 17). Exorcism of collective beauty, dreamlike evening of realities. After the "inebriation" of the concert in Barcelona, Cohen chains himself at the bottom of an empty pool in his dressing room, and declares: "After a concert like this one can do a lot of nonsense ... I've spent my life looking for the way of freedom…

Alberto Manzano was possibly the one who sold me at the door of this concert an anonymous Spanish translation of the lyrics of Recent Songs (1979), one document of cyclostyle sheets stapled and covered with red tape, a valuable stuff to try understand Cohen, and I'm still trying to understand him. Manzano managed to get to the backstage with the empty pool, where his relationship with Cohen began. That winter he traveled to Hydra, from this visit we have an interesting collection of photos with Adam and Lorca. Manzano has written a number of Cohen-related books and organized two mini tribute tours in 2006 and 2007.

Leonard Cohen - Intro - Barcelona 1980

A memorable concert and a landmark in the musical year in Barcelona as it were published in a newspaper.