April 13 (Bloomberg) -- When the songs of promises made but not kept and love that couldn’t hold became too heavy, Leonard Cohen lightened the mood with a sardonic quip.

“Ah they don’t let a woman kill you/ Not in the Tower of Song,” Cohen sang during his April 10 show, the first of two nights he played at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles. He then added a line not found in the original lyrics: “Everywhere else, they’re fair game.”

It’s not only Cohen’s lyrics that are bittersweet; for fans of the Canadian-born singer, his return to the stage must offer mixed feelings as well. The 74-year-old Cohen has embarked on his first U.S. tour in 15 years partly for financial reasons. A Los Angeles court ruled in 2006 that a former business manager stole from Cohen $9.5 million, money he hasn’t recovered. With tickets close to the Nokia stage selling for almost $100 apiece, Cohen hinted at the reason for his return.

“Thank you for coming, for paying these exorbitant prices, and for keeping my songs alive all these years,” Cohen said in his whisky-tinged baritone.

Some fans at the 7,100-seat Nokia looked young enough to have found their way to Cohen through the late Jeff Buckley, whose version of Cohen’s “Hallelujah” has been used in numerous television shows, or Rufus Wainwright, whose cover was on the “Shrek” soundtrack. Many in the crowd, however, shared Cohen’s silver hair.

Cult Figure

Cohen was born several months before Elvis Presley and seven years before Bob Dylan, and it’s been 42 years since his first album. Despite such a long career, induction last year into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and covers by everyone from Willie Nelson to R.E.M., he remains something of a cult figure.

Cohen has dates scheduled throughout the U.S. and Canada through early June, including shows at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall on May 16 and 17, before he moves on to Germany, Belgium, France and the U.K. in July.

During his sabbatical from the stage, Cohen studied Buddhism at a monastic retreat near Los Angeles. At the Nokia show, he acknowledged both his failure at religion -- “Cheerfulness kept breaking through,” he explained -- and the decade and a half since his last tour.

“I was 60 years old at the time, just a kid with a crazy dream,” he said dryly.

Audience Favorite

Cohen’s 74 years didn’t prevent him from skipping, jogging and dancing on and off stage. Age is less an issue for Cohen than many performers younger than him, as he’s been writing an old man’s lyrics for decades. The line “I ache in the places where I used to play,” from 1988’s “Tower of Song,” is now an audience favorite.

The Nokia show offered few surprises, with a set list not far removed from the shows from his last tour in the mid-1990s, his Beacon Theatre show in New York in February, or his July 2008 appearance at London’s O2 Arena, released last month by Columbia Records on CD and DVD as “Live in London.”

Cohen mostly stuck to the fan favorites, including the early “Bird on the Wire,” “Suzanne” and “So Long, Marianne” and 1988’s “Everybody Knows,” arguably the most cynical song ever written (“Everybody knows the fight was fixed/ The poor stay poor, the rich get rich/ That’s how it goes/ Everybody knows”).

Cohen also provided a healthy dose of despair from 1992’s “The Future,” including the title track and “Democracy,” along with “In My Secret Life” and “Boogie Street” from 2001’s “Ten New Songs,” both co-written by longtime collaborator Sharon Robinson. While those two songs, recorded after Cohen last toured, aren’t as lyrically biting as Cohen’s earlier work, they also don’t sound out of place alongside “Famous Blue Raincoat” and “First We Take Manhattan.”

Saccharine, Gravel

While Cohen’s band approaches the saccharine at times -- Dino Soldo’s saxophone solos verge on being light jazz -- it provides a fine contrast to the gravelly voice of Cohen, whose range has become limited over the years. The fine work of Spanish guitarist Javier Mas and Hammond B3 organist Neil Larsen helped keep the band’s listen-while-you-work tendencies at bay.

Clad in his signature black suit, a bolo tie and a fedora, Cohen exhibited his usual gentlemanliness to his band and back- up singers, introducing each to the audience not once but twice. (Guitarist Bob Metzger was dubbed “the architect of arpeggio,” and drummer Rafael Gayol “the prince of precision.”) Cohen also stepped aside to let Robinson sing “Boogie Street” alone, and gave his other two back-up singers, sisters Charley and Hattie Webb, “If It Be Your Will” to perform as a duet.

Cohen was similarly generous with his audience, offering them 28 songs over three hours and twenty minutes. After dancing off stage following “Closing Time,” a fitting show-ender, Cohen came back one last time.

“I tried to leave you/ I will not deny,” he sang, garnering a last laugh from his fans. The song, from 1974’s “New Skin for the Old Ceremony,” turned out to be an even more appropriate closer. “Goodnight, my darling/ I hope you’re satisfied.”

Rating: ***.

What the Stars Mean:
****       Excellent
***        Good
**         Average
*          Poor
(No stars) Worthless

(Daniel Taub is a reporter for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on the story: Daniel Taub in Los Angeles at dtaub@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 13, 2009 00:00 EDT