Cope Tour May 2007

[Common Era]

Well, its all over now, but I managed to do what I had wanted to do for a very long time and that was be something of a groupie on a Cope tour!

In the end I went to Barrow-in-Furness, Reading, Birmingham, Gloucester, Northampton, Stoke-on-Trent and Dublin shows. All were excellent, despite quite a few having strict curfews.

Julian was strong, confident and brilliant! Excellent mix of songs old and new, including quite a few surprises like Screaming Secrets, O King of Chaos, Little Donkey and even Christ vs. Warhol! Great banter and wonderfully entertaining. Soul Desert and Upwards at 45º were blisteringly good and one real treat was his bass solo performance of the new track "How German Is Your Helemt? [Part 9]" which he did at a few of the shows.

managed to hang out backstage at quite a few of the gigs and even helped Julian load up the truck after the Dublin gig. Great to meet up with so many people who post at HH also. Reading seemed to be the gig that most people came out for, with about 25 or more of us meeting up at a pub before the show.

All in all, an amazing experience and one I shan't forget in a very long time.

[Tripecac]

Wow, cool! Was it mostly full band or Julian acoustic?

[Common Era]

All shows were Julian solo playing acoustic (with some pedal effects) and piano. At some of the more local shows to where he lives he did also bring along the mellotron.

Support acts ranged from local artists to Dogntank as Doggen supported on a couple of nights doing an what was described as an acoustic set of Dogntank songs, but he ran the acoustic guitar through several effects that made it sound more electric than anything.