LITTLE ROCK — Leonard Cohen is recovering after collapsing onstage while on tour ineastern Spain, his music company said Saturday. The veteran poet and performer has been released from a hospital after suffering from a stomach complaint, Doctor Music Concerts said in a statement. Cohen was partway through his song "Bird on the Wire" in Valencia when he fainted, causing the band to stop playing to rush to his aid as concertgoers watched. The concert was stopped. A video showing Cohen kneeling down several times during the performance and then keeling over sideways has been placed on the You-Tube Web site by a fan. The Canadian-born musician, who will be 75 years old Monday, was taken in an ambulance to the Nueve de Octubre hospital in Valencia but released early Saturday, Barcelona-based Doctor Music Concerts said.
Cuban dissident punk rocker Gorki Aguila is in the U.S. for 15 days to promote his new CD, but he's not sure if he'll be able to return home because of his sharp criticism of the Cuban government. "I'm scared," said Aguila, who has repeatedly been arrested there. "But I have to do this. This is the path I've chosen," Aguila told reporters in Miami on Friday as he began a tour to promote The Faded Red Album - a dig at the Cuban government's communist ideology. The lead singer of Porno para Ricardo, or Porn for Ricardo, has a small but dedicated following on the island but is better known outside the country for his sexually explicit and irreverent criticism of Fidel Castro and his brother, Cuban President Raul Castro.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 09/20/2009