SINGER-songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen has added a date at the BIC to his rapidly selling-out 2013 UK tour. Tickets are on sale immediately for his visit on August 26.

Top price tickets cost an eye-watering £75 each and there are also tickets for £40. The veteran Canadian wordsmith was already a published poet and well into his 30s when he was discovered in the 1960s by Columbia Records John Hammond.

A man with an uncanny nose for talent, Hammond had already signed Bob Dylan and would later discover a young Bruce Springsteen. Cohen found an instant cult following with songs like Suzanne and So Long Marianne.

With his meaningful lyrics and sombre voice he soon became famous as a bed-sit hero whose albums were loved by the lonely and lovelorn.

In recent decades however a wry humour has become evident in his work.

Meanwhile his songs have been been been covered by a raft been performed, perhaps most notably, by the late Jeff Buckley who recorded the song Hallelujah. Cohen, who celebrates his 79th birthday in September, is regarded as one the great lyricists and performers of his generation.

Cohen has recently been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, where he was acknowledged by Velvet Underground frontman Lou Reed as “without question one of the most important and influential songwriters of our time.”