Photos From Leonard Cohen’s Little Known 2009 Bilbao Concert

The September 17, 2009 Leonard Cohen concert in Barakaldo, Spain (aka The Bilbao Concert) was one of those Cohen Stealth Concerts – shows that were well performed by the musicians and well received by the audiences but somehow escaped notice, generating comparatively few video and audio recordings, reviews, and, of course, photos.

Note: The venue was listed on Tour schedules as the “Bilbao Exhibition Centre.” But the BEC moved from Bilbao to Barakaldo and is now officially designated the “Bizkaia Arena.”  It remains, however, commonly known as “Bilbao Exhibition Centre.”

Consequently, I was excited to stumble across this bevy of top-notch shots taken by Fleya de Ugalde, who graciously agreed to allow me to post a sampling here, noting “Fellow Cohenites must be kind to each other.”

 

I am especially fond of the photo sequence seen below of Leonard holding ‘the flowers, then striking his “prepare to depart” pose, than hit his “and away we go” move.

 

It’s a secret no longer – Leonard Cohen was a happy man in Bilbao/Barakaldo.

I am republishing selected posts from my former Leonard Cohen site, Cohencentric, here on AllanShowalter.com (these posts can be found at Leonard Cohen). This entry was originally posted Dec 30, 2016.