On Halloween night in 1988 Leonard Cohen taped a performance for the live concert television program Austin City Limits. Here’s how ACL Executive Producer Terry Lickona described the events from 30 years ago: Leonard was not much aware of ACL until his Austin friends and cohorts convinced him to do the show. The band played a late show in L.A. the night before and took the red-eye straight to Austin, arriving just in time for rehearsal. They were all wearing the same clothes (Leonard never did change), and his only request was for a bottle of tequila, which the band easily dispensed with. The show was mesmerizing, as was the reaction from viewers who had never heard or seen anything quite like him. Leonard told me some years later that that Austin City Limits performance ‘saved his career in America’ at a time when he had all but been forgotten.
