Coppelius @ Pumpwerk Wilhelmshaven

2023-01-252023-01-25 Carina Ullmann

20.01.2023, Pumpwerk Wilhelmshaven (GER)

To check out the photo gallery, click here

As I was told, „Coppelius hilft“, woud already be enough to write into this report, as it would be expressing everything that needs to be said. Quite a valid point, because the band indeed helps – boring Friday? Go and see Coppelius! Bad mood or having faced a terrible week? Go and see Coppelius!

It´s been a pity though that far too few people have realized just this in advanced, as only 130 tickets were sold before this evening – in the end there´ve been around 200 fans gathered at Pumpwerk, but that´s not making the situation much better. Thus right at the start a big “Thank you” to the organizer that hasn´t blown off the show and therefore made this evening with amazing entertainment possible! So if you want to make sure that you can experience such an evening yourself, go and get your ticket right in this moment – otherwise maybe even more shows will be cancelled like the one in Andernach.

The start into the evening were the support-duo called FELINE AND STRANGE – with their dark cabaret show they split the audience pretty much into two. Clueless faces on the one side, standing right next to well-entertained looking faces that seemingly were understanding the duo´s concept or at least felt like it was making time pass by well without being bored. It´s been an entertaining appearance, and my personal highlights was the vocal range that Feline can cover, she just showed it not often enough. All in all, the audience being widely spread over the whole venue remained reserved. There clearly was more potential that needed to be unleashed!

After a quick change-over , long enough to be pillaging the bar, it finally started: COPPELIUS, blessed with now around 220 years of experience entered the creaking planks of the stage with youthful agility and overwhelming joy for performing.

So now started a time that just seemed to be flying by – there was dancing, laughing, singing and clapping along – and what´s always important: if you´d have only looked at the band, noone would´ve ever guessed how few had found their way to the show!

The rather empty place had one good thing though – if you were a band member and felt like taking a walking through the place and play amongst the audience, this was no problem. Up the tribune, down the tribune, and back on stage, all easy. No legs in your way, no arms, all relaxed and everyone honored it with a big smile on their faces.

The setlist was a nice time traveling time, well, you had to cover quite a few years – even though a couple dropped out as recordings from the very old days were not really a thing to be found. But also songs off the coming album were not to be missed – so right at the start you were welcomes with “Rainmaker” – quite amusing, looking at the fact that this town here is lacking everything but not water from above, or below. The old songs did a really good job, too, what else to expect – Kryptoxenoarchäologie” (please say that ten times quickly one time after the other!) and “Bitten Danken Petitieren” made it hearable that the audience knew the words.

The biggest focus was on one person: Graf Lindorf who had announced quitting and not being on stage anymore any time soon – it´s been the main topic amongst the fans, at least where I had been and tha´s not surprising. When someone is leaving this Coppelius-family, it leaves a hole and hurts. Therefore songs like “Musenkuss” have been even more important than they´ve been normally, as the cellist was once again able to show it all and win the hearts of the audience once more – and thus managed to make the goodbye even tougher.

After all, it´s been an evening that noone has regretted – a diverse choice of songs, a lot of charism and charme, a lot of power also the important quiet moments were not being left out. Time travels that made it easy for everyone involved to forget about the normal life that was waiting in front of the Pumpwerk doors on that evening.

In case there is now someone thinking “if the band manages to rock the audience at their old age, I gotta go and get to understand this” or if someone is full of panic about Graf Lindorf leaving: there is still tickets for all of the coming shows! So rush and check the tourdates here!

Setliste Coppelius (no guarantee that it´s complete and correct)