Leonard Cohen: Yad Eliahu Sports Palace, Tel Aviv, Israel, 1972

"He was looking forward to playing Israel," writes Leonard Cohen's biographer Sylvie Simmons of the songwriter's first tour of the Holy Land in 1972. "He was terrified of playing Israel."

The kickoff show in Tel Aviv was certainly eventful, as a tape of the gig shows us all these years later. You wouldn't think that the delicate and poetic sounds of Cohen and his band would ever serve as soundtrack a riot, but that seems to be what's happening. Clashes between security and the audience continually break out. "I know you . . .

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