Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight 1970

VINYL FORMAT. For the first time ever, the historic performance from the legendary 1970 festival is available! This 2xLP package contains the full performance on 180 gram high-quality vinyl. Nearly forty summers ago on August 31, 1970, 35--year-old Leonard Cohen was awakened at 2am from a nap in his trailer and brought onstage to perform with his band at the third annual Isle of Wight music festival. The audience of 600,000 was in a fiery and frenzied mood, after turning the festival into a political arena, trampling the fences, setting fire to structures and equipment - and stoked by the most incendiary performance of Jimi Hendrix's career.

As Cohen followed Hendrix's set, onlookers (and fellow festival headliners) Joan Baez, Kris Kristofferson, Judy Collins and others stood sidestage in awe as the Canadian folksinger-songwriter-poet-novelist quietly tamed the crowd. Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Murray Lerner, whose footage of the 1970 festival did not begin to see release until 1995, was able to capture Cohen's performance. Likewise, Columbia Records staff A&R producer Teo Macero did a brilliant job of supervising Cohen's live recording.

Included are live versions of classic songs from the first two Leonard Cohen LPs: "So Long, Marianne," "The Stranger Song," "Suzanne," "Bird on the Wire," and "You Know Who I Am."