Coppe’: Fuji Rock is a better place

I want to say a big thank you to Coppe’. In the middle of a long and busy shift that took me from the Cafe de Paris to the Red Marquee (absolutely opposite ends of the festival for those of you who don’t know) and five stops in between (not in order either), I’d ignored the weather reports and left all my wet weather gear at our base. When I got to CDP, I found a seat immediately as someone vacated, and a deluge started outside. It promptly finished five mnutes before Coppe’ did. During the four hours I was away from base, the only rain that fell was when I was comfortably seated indoors. Well, as indoors as the Cafe de Paris gets, with its muddy earth floor.

Coppe likes her toys. She has a small set of generic off-the-shelf shelves set up as a podium to house them all. Today she used the vocorder (constantly), the plastic piano accordian (maybe in recognition of her surroundings at the Cafe de Paris), a meat grinder (to what end I have no idea), a couple of spanners (that’s wrenches to those of you from the other side of English), and a whole lot more she didn’t press into service. Jeff plays double bass, with Frank on keyboards. There’s a drummer too, but due to continued use of the vocorder during the intros I missed his name completely. Twice.

Coppe’ sang a song about being a fish out of water. Not at Fujirock, she fits right in. A treat. Maybe she was listening to Crookers last night, she’s sporting the polka dots. She reminds us that we’re “200% live” with nothing recorded. A great version of Cry Me A River had me thinking of Beth Gibbons of Portisehead. More funky, cool tunes. I like them. The vocorder gets a workout, with near every setting used. The spanners fill in for maracas. The piano accordion gets a blast. Coppe’ makes Fujirock a more interesting place.

reported by dom