Vancouver's Night with Citizen Cope

I love folk, I'm drawn to soul and I groove to hip-hop. These details are what lured me to Citizen Cope, whose music is an amalgamation of all three genres. Cope, a.k.a. Clarence Greenwood, filled up the Commodore Thursday night and, albeit ill, pleased the crowd with his low-key musicality.

The line-up for the show was mainly composed of concert-goers in their early-to-mid twenties, all huddled happily in roughly distinguishable groups of skaters, potheads and blonde girls in short skirts. At 8pm the doors of the Commodore swung open and the venue demonstrated its abilities as a restaurant and bar. As the crowd grew, diehard devotees began contemplating the heights of Greenwood's lyrical and musical creativity with eager anticipation.

Cope walked on stage as the clock struck 10 and began strumming the opening chords of "Salvation" to deafening cheers. The dim lighting and Greenwood's pained expression worked to increase the emotional atmosphere around the three-song solo-acoustic introduction.

The introduction ended with "Every Waking Moment", and as it's final notes faded, Greenwood's band-mates took their places and started into "More Than It Seems". The band was tight from the start, a detail that remained constant throughout the show.

The audience response to "Bullet and a Target" was overwhelming. While Greenwood made a stunted attempt at interacting with the crowd, Cope's bassist was definitely feeling the groove while sporting a comically-cool pair of sunglasses. The area in front of the stage was packed with hands beating the air like a scene out of 8 Mile. Listening carefully to the album version of the song, you can hear rhythmic clapping in the background of the track, a part of the composition that seemed written for the live show. In fact, much of Citizen Cope's writing seemed tailored for live performance; parts that dragged slightly in recordings allowed for great live instrumental builds. There was no set list, and the band artfully altered tempos and injected bluesy interludes.

While "Bullet and a Target" had Greenwood doing a few laps around the small stage, his overall energy and audience interaction was lacking. This fact may be attributed to sickness, as the dreadlocked leader felt the need to gargle in front of his fans more than once during the course of the evening. Nonetheless, the band put their all into the tune "Son's Gonna Rise", which featured Greenwood doing a Bob Marley-esque dance in addition to other minor antics. The band broke into an enormous instrumental breakdown as if to prove that illness could not stop the group from being musically on point.

This musicality seemed enough to keep the crowd lively, and the Commodore echoed for an encore after the band exited the stage. Citizen Cope returned and started the encore with the instant pleaser "Let the Drummer Kick"—possibly Cope's most successful song. Unfortunately, a two-song encore was all Greenwood had in him, and whilst his drummer seemed ready to go into another tune, the front-man chose to take his leave of the stage.

As the crowd squeezed towards the exit, it was apparent that Greenwood's brief encore had caused a little disappointment, as one fan claimed that Citizen Cope's attitude towards the evening was to "do my show and get the hell out." Another fan was a little more understanding, claiming, "While energy was lacking, he played everything I wanted to hear, so I'll forgive him. It is flu season."

All in all, Citizen Cope came through. His lack of energy did not seem to translate to audience members, who sang each heartfelt word, soaked in the soulful organ solos and danced to every grooving baseline.

Citizen Cope played a full house at The Commodore Ballroom this past Thursday, March 20.
Visit his Myspace or purchase his last album, titled 'Every Waking Moment' via his website or Amazon.ca.