Leonard Cohen died this week at the age of 82. Jon Bon Jovi, like many other artists, was a great admirer of Leonard's work. In honour of a legend, here's one of my idols paying tribute to one of his.
Bon Jovi performed "Hallelujah" quite frequently on the Lost Highway and Circle tours. It appeared on the Live at Madison Square Garden DVD:
JBJ has also covered "I'm Your Man" (not to be confused with the song on Burning Bridges) with the Kings of Suburbia:
A couple of days ago Bon Jovi's recording engineer Obie O'Brien confirmed that "Hallelujah" would appear on the Lost Highway Tour DVD. The Leonard Cohen classic, famously covered by the late Jeff Buckley and several others, was first performed by Bon Jovi in 2007. It's proven to be one of their more popular live covers, albeit sometimes a bit polarising because it doesn't showcase the "rock" side of things too much. But if you put that aside and appreciate the universal language of music for what it is, you'll find a beautiful, mature rendition of a very poetic song. For Magic Memory #17, I tried to find the "best" version of "Hallelujah" from the Lost Highway tour, but the truth is I haven't heard a bad version. So here's "Hallelujah" from HSH Nordbank Arena in Hamburg, Germany on May 28, 2008. Enjoy! (The video is very Jon-centric though so be aware of that).
Now I've heard there was a secret chord That David played and it pleased the Lord But you don't really care for music, do you? It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah
