A good friend of this author gave perhaps the best description of the night to Citizen Cope: “Jack Johnson with soul.” The unfortunate part of the evening was that, despite that soul, the show was, in a word, “lackluster”. Cope played all his hits – to the obvious joy of much of the stoner frat-boy crowd – but did so without ever raising the pace of the evening. Indeed, the overwhelming vibe of the show was that of a funeral dirge – depressing songs, played slowly, with few efforts to get the crowd engaged.
Cope has built a solid reputation on his catchy songs, and for good reason: most have memorable, hooky choruses, a fact the audience took to heart throughout the show. Indeed, the songs were played to near-perfection, all notes and lyrics seemingly accounted for. The biggest drawback of the live show is that it left this reviewer thinking he might have been as well off sitting at home, listening to Cope’s CD and looking at a photo of the ensemble, so little did they work to engage the audience.
In short, if you are a fan of Citizen Cope’s music, and don’t require more than an artist to run flawlessly through their catalogue, Citizen Cope may be exactly the show for you. If you want to see an artist that will challenge, engage, or even simply entertain you, think about buying his admittedly good CDs.
