Citizen Cope borderline. Soho. London



It’s nice to know that even as a world-weary 51 year old, one can still get that rush of youthful excitement at being at a gig destined to become the talk of folklore, albeit in a culty, clubby kinda way among the self-appointed elite of the music cognoscenti.

But such was the case last night at the Borderline, where Citizen Cope made a rare (possibly debut?) London performance.

Given that I don’t know anyone who has heard of Citizen Cope, let alone liked him, I was half expecting to find myself in a crowd of about 30 people at the gig. In fact, when I rocked up to the Borderline the show had just begun and the place was full to the seams with a 300 standing capacity crowd singing along with every line of ever lyric of every song. So packed it was indeed that I had to watch the first few minutes from the staircase entering the room.

Then, much to our collective good fortune, the Polish bouncer decided we all had to clear the stairwell and proceeded to march us all down to the front by way of reducing the gap between audience and stage to fit us all in, so much so that I literally found myself ducking below Copes guitar every time he turned and moved about the stage.

Cope cuts a curious figure. Dressed in an expensive looking blue shirt beneath a suit length brown leather jacket, atop the customary hip hop combat pants and trainers, he had a brooding presence which at once gave his entirely non-charismatic posturing, immediately charisma. His bearded tough guy features, softened by piercing blue eyes and top-knot white man dreads made him look like the meanest hippy in town.

For the most part he remained impassive, content to voice his poetically descriptive - and somewhat violence-laced - lyrics do the work; all delivered in his strangely compelling speaking/singing vocal style while scratching out odd, open stringed chord shapes, alternating between acoustic and a marine blue Telecaster guitar. Occasionally he would shoot glances to his adoring audience, holding eye contact with us in the front row with expressionless shark eyes in a somewhat unnerving manner.

Behind him, crammed on the tiny stage, was a four piece band. Two white guys on keys whose job largely consisted of providing chordal drones and the odd piano motif over a tight black rhythm section. The bassist of whom had the largest rig this side of Deep Purple, his bass rumble permeating every corner of the tonal palette, he pumped away, largely on the root notes, to Copes own particular brand of uneasy hip-hop rhythms. No solos, no licks, no vamps, no overdrive pedals on show here tonight.

In fact, on the face of it, one might wonder how Cope gets away with it. Each song is not unlike the one before - similarly rhythmic, each centered on three, maybe four, of Copes singular chord shapes, all sung with the same monotone delivery. But it all adds up to something all rather magical and mysterious indeed; certainly considerably more than the sum of individual parts. Perhaps it’s similar to the way much of, say, Lou Reeds or Bob Dylan’s best efforts work - it’s the apparent simplicity, the directness of the music, juxtaposed against the urban poetry, which gives the whole thing power and form. Not that Cope’s music has much in common with those named artists otherwise..he is very much his own man, finding his own musical style and voice, and much the better for it. The man is certainly a one off, a refreshing innovator in a world of plagiarists and worse.

Indeed, alongside stunning debut albums by Lewis Taylor and, more recently, Foy Vance, Cope’s first album remains in my own personal list of top five greatest ever albums. As he mined tracks from it he told the audience ‘this album never got released here...how come you know all the words?,,,,, I guess it must just be my lucky day’.

As the man’s 65 minute set ended with the jaunty ‘Son's Gonna Rise’ , the crowd, and indeed the man himself, danced and jumped and the 300 strong vocal chorus never sounded louder. We all knew, as indeed we all knew from the first moment, that this had been no ordinary gig.

After a considerable delay, the man returned to the stage alone, still sweating under his jacket and he proceeded to treat all to a simple stripped back vocal and guitar rendition of his masterwork ‘Salvation’ (‘put the gun down, put the gun down....’). A couple more solo tunes followed and, as with Lewis Taylor’s New York debut perhaps, the power and intensity of a guy standing alone on the stage playing scratchy chords on an acoustic guitar and telling his stories like some kind of cartoonish hippy New York gangster, again simply underlined the rare power of the man’s artistry. At one point, he didn’t sing at all; he just sketched out some notes on his guitar while the entire crowd sang every word of every line of every verse of the tune.

The guy seemed genuinely humbled and moved by this and he allowed a rare grin to soften his stony features, ‘Love and Peace, y’all, love and peace’ he growled as he left the stage, this time for good, leaving his roadie to distribute a 12 track ‘white label’ CD to the outstretched arms before him, along with a clutch of plectrums and other instant memorabilia from a truly memorable night.

‘Salvation’ indeed.

Cope plays London’s 100 Club this Thursday 14th March....if you can be there, be there!!