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Underground, Cologne, Germany
22nd March 2008
Coppelius, Cumulo Nimbus

We had never seen or heard a song of this mysterious band called COPPELIUS before and from what we read we thought we had a good impression of what a show with the band might look like but what happened at the Underground club in Cologne hit us a bit off guard…


Cumulo Nimbus

The band was founded in 2000 and released three albums so far, called ‘Minne, Met und Moritaten’, ‘Nachtwache’ and the latest one ‘Die Stunde der Wahrheit’ (2007). CUMULO NIMBUS are Machis Mandjolin (vocals, bag pipe, guitar and many more), Erik der Müllermeister (vocals, lute, guitar), Lady Doro (violin, vocals), Pac Houdt (vocals, drums), Carolynn (vocals, flute) and Kaeptän Kohler (bass). http://www.cumulo-nimbus.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/cumulonimbusll



Music & Performance
The band presented rather classic medieval rock with flutes and violin. We’re wondering if all the band members would fit on the pretty small stage but that turned out to be no problem at all and you can say they used the room they had very well as they really rocked the stage. But as hard as thy tried, most people in the crowd just seemed to be waiting for the main act and hardly moved at all for most of the time. For some songs the band could at least encourage the audience to clap to the songs.



Setlist
01. Flammentanz
02. In muro
03. Blumenmeer
04. Wilder Reigen
05. Moor
06. Komm mit
07. Engel Tanz
08. Wirtshaus
---
09. Feuerteufel

Rating
Music: 6
Performance: 8
Sound: 7
Light: 7
Total: 7




Coppelius

Nothing particular is known of this mysterious band. If you take a look on their homepage you can find a “concertography” dating back until the early 19th century but the first known appearance of COPPELIUS was the farewell tour of THE INCHTABOKTABLES where they had the support slot. They also performed as support for Mila Mar, Mutabor, Fiddler’s Green and others in 2003 & 2004. A demo EP called ‘To my Creator’ has been released which also includes the first video for the song ‘Get used to it’. In April 2007 a live DVD was recorded in Berlin followed by the first time appearance at the Wave Gotik Treffen in the same year. In summer 2007, COPPELIUS signed a record deal with Fame Recordings and the debut album ‘Time-Zeit’ was released in September 2007. COPPELIUS is: Max Coppelia (vocals, clarinet), Nobusama (drums), Graf Lindorf (vocals, cello), Comte Caspar (vocals, clarinet), Sissy Voss (contrabass) and Bastille (vocals, servant). http://www.coppelius-band.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/coppeliushilft



Music & Performance
Who needs E-Guitar and E-bass if you can get two clarinets, a cello and a double-bass instead? Yes, you read right. COOPPELIUS don’t play any ordinary kind of Metal. They describe their style as “Chamber Core from the 19th Century” others simply call it “Chamber Metal”. A specialty of this style is that the instruments like the cello or the double-bass are sometimes processed with effects like distortion for example. You can compare that to APOCALYPTICA if you want.



The reconstruction break took a bit more time than expected due to some technical problems with the monitoring, but last but not least this problem was solved and everyone left the stage. As decoration a big banner with an archaic clock and the words ‘Time-Zeit’ on it was hung up in the back. Apart from that a partition wall has been built up at the left end with a carpet laid down in front of it; the drums were partly covered with red velvet. Then the light went out all of a sudden and the butler Bastille dressed in a tailcoat entered the stage with a lantern to light up the others mounted on different sides of the stage. One member after the other entered the stage and every time one member entered the stage he helped them to cast off their tailcoats. Then he grabbed a cymbal off the drums and two people in the audience had the honour to bash onto the cymbal while the audience was continuously shouting “Hey, Hey, Hey”. Comte Caspar insisted to take a bath in the audience and played his clarinet from there. The people opened him a passage while he was gently walking through the masses.



You would expect the other members especially those with the cello and double-bass to rather stand still while maltreating the instruments but that couldn’t be further away from the truth. The two changed positions several times and played solos that were simply brilliant. Speaking of solo: The drummer Nobusama played an incredible one for some minutes and showed he’s an absolute master in that discipline. But let’s get back to the servant for one last time. He wasn’t only there to clean up the instruments of the band. He also served them with drink during the performance and a glass of Absinth was handed out to one guy in the audience, who drank it out at once. Bastille was also responsible for the announcements in proper style between the songs and he sang many of the songs himself.



The crowd was a class of its own. Most people had obviously seen the band before and knew all the lyrics. The mood was incredibly good and everywhere you looked you could see the people dancing, shouting and clapping.  After the main set had ended and the band already left the stage, the audience demanded an encore but instead of the usual shouts, they screamed “Da Capo” and after Bastille told them to be louder because otherwise it would be rather difficult to get the guys back on stage it really became louder and COPPELIUS entered the stage again to play some more songs before it was finally time to say goodbye. I can honestly say that I have never seen anything like this before in the most positive sense of course. A really extraordinary show!

Setlist
01. Transilvania
02. Schöne Augen
03. Operation
04. I’d rather be dead
05. Time-Zeit
06. Ghengis Khan
07. Olympia
08. Morgenstimmung
09. To my Creator
10. Ouvertüre
11. Rightful King
12. Phantom of the Opera
13. Amulett
14. Urinstinkt
---
15. Innocent Exile
16. I got used to it

Rating
Music: 7
Performance: 10
Sound: 8
Light: 7
Total: 8



All pictures by Daniela Vorndran (http://www.vorndranphotography.com/ / http://www.black-cat-net.de/ / www.myspace.com/vorndranphotography)
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