He was backed by a small country-influenced band called The Army that included guitarist Ron Cornelius and fiddle player Charlie Daniels.

In the liner notes to the album, film director Murray Lerner confesses to Sylvie Simmons: "As I watched him walk out there I thought this is going to be a disaster.

Leonard didn't much like the circus, he told them sedately, but he had enjoyed the part when a man would ask everyone in the audience to light a match.

Cohen also speaks about the origins of some of the songs, revealing to the crowd that he'd written "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong" in a peeling room in the Chelsea Hotel when he was "coming off amphetamine and pursuing a blond lady that [he] met in a Nazi poster."

Kristofferson, Joan Baez and Judy Collins watched Cohen's set from the side of the stage and can be seen clapping and singing along to the song "Tonight Will Be Fine."

Thom Jurek of AllMusic states, "Whether it's 'So Long, Marianne,' the poem 'They Locked Up a Man,' the stellar reading of 'The Partisan,' or the chilling version of 'Famous Blue Raincoat,' this is top-notch Cohen."