REVIEW: ADAM COHEN AT BRISTOL THEKLA (06/11/11)
Seated gigs at Bristol’s party boat, The Thekla, can be really disconcerting. You cannot deter from the fact that this is a slightly grotty-looking (in a cool way) boat/nightclub so when some clean-living boy like Adam Cohen comes along, attracting an altogether different crowd, then something has to give.
In this instance, it was the layout. about half a dozen rows of chairs lined the bottom deck, leaving the latecomers to fill up the sides and the balcony or stand at the back. Then you had Cohen commenting on the ‘inevitable’ mould spores on the Thekla and urging people to pop next door to meet him after the show. Maybe this gig would’ve been better suited to the Folk House or St Bonaventure’s. Nevertheless, here we were. All intimate and expectant. For, if you didn’t know already, Adam is the son of the world-renowned genius that is Leonard Cohen. Hell, those are some BIG (non Ugg) boots to fill and safe to say Adam wasn’t really up to the job. Sure, his brand of mediocre solo singer/songriter acoustica was pleasant enough (save for Beautiful when he croons ‘I love you’ over and over again in an ode to his four year old son. Too cute/vom inducing depending on whether you’ve got kids or not); but they certainly aren’t going to stand the test of time like his father’s material has.
Me and Adam got off on the wrong foot instantly, when he wandered onto the stage wearing a pair of Ugg boots (with his jeans tucked in). I mean Ughs (sic), on a man, what is that all about?! Thankfully, he seemed a pretty nice guy and he’s very easy on the eye (Uggs aside) so as long as you kept your line of vision above his knees it wasn’t too bad. As well as the sometimes cringeworthy ‘heartfelt’ lyrics, there was humour in his songs, especially the chucklesome Girls These Days. His cover of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going on was OK but was excecuted in that X-Factor gurning way, which did not help. Things picked up with recent single, Like A Man, which had a blatant nod towards Leonard Cohen but with a modern twist, a slight James Morrison vibe. Perfectly acceptable for Radio 2. It seems like most of Adam’s songs centred around women’s names – including Eleanor and Hey Jane, from the recordd Ex Girlfriends – suggesting he’s a bit of a player perhaps, or trying to mimick his dad.
I’d usually shy away from comparing someone to their famous parent, thinking they’d prefer to be judged in their own right (cue Baxter Drury) but Adam actually trades on his dad’s fame, mentioning him throughout the set, re-using his father’s lyrics in his songs and eventually throwing in a straight forward cover of So Long Marianne. It speaks volumes that it was here that Adam came into his own – pulling off that cover with such conviction and precision that it proved the highlight of the set. If it wasn’t for the family name, one wonders whether he’d be here, touring the UK at all, or whether he’d be stuck playing hometown open mic nights. Perhaps he’d be better off doing a tour of ‘Adam Cohen plays the songs of Leonard Cohen’. Though since his glorious return to the stage back in 2008, you could just go see Cohen senior live.
Words and photo: Laura Williams
