Liam Cooper must be a magician to pull so many hit songs out of his hat and get Wellington audiences dancing in their seats on a Thursday night.

A Steinway & Sons grand piano awaits us on the Opera House stage with flashing smoke that warns us we’re about to have a good time.

Liam Cooper’s King of the Keys is a groove down memory lane, no matter what age you are or where you are from.

Our quest is to discovering who is the King of the Keys. The audience submits their choices via a QR code while being entertained with hit after hit from Billy Joel to Barry Manilow – and plenty of our resulting winner: Elton John.

It’s a perfect show to take the whole family because, like a box of chocolates, everyone will find something they love.

Liam warms up the crowd with entertaining stories of cruise ship life, making a music video in Christchurch airport the day before, the celebrities he’s met and his favourite dinner table stories.

The real star of the show is the music however, and the energy grows as the band dives further into all our favourite songs, plus some fabulous medleys including The Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’ and ‘Hey Jude’, and ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon.

My favourite part of the show is time travelling to the 1950s and 60s with this medley of ‘Tutti Frutti’, ‘Great Balls Of Fire’ and ‘Hallelujah I Love Her So’ by Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles.

The band is on fire, helped with spectacular lighting design by Jasmine Rizk. Smoke machines and a wind blower make sure to blow everyone away if that’s not already the case.

Our show’s creator and lead, Liam Cooper, has some heroes in his band with Noa Kidd rocking the guitar and Jake Arvonen smashing the drums. We are also blessed with Angus Gomm on trumpet and Jimmy Whelan on saxophone, who make it feel like we’ve got a whole orchestra at times.

With only four visible speakers, I’m surprised they don’t explode and I wish there were more speakers to hear the parts more individually because every song, part and instrument could be its own show.

I manage to hear better after moving a few rows back after the interval and I’m glad I have. The sound is great wherever people sat but I really appreciate being able to hear more this way.

I would happily go again and recommend others book in as well. Such a wholesome, family friendly and energetic performance is just what we need to scare those winter clouds away and enjoy all the magical music and arts Wellington has to offer all year around for those in the know.

Make sure you don’t miss out on Liam’s next show by following his posts and music online, and I will see you all at the next show!

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

We wend our way past the last trick-or-treater stragglers on our way to Liam Cooper’s King of the Keys. But once seated inside the Brace Mason Centre – a great venue for generous sight lines – Halloween is all but forgotten. Everything screams ‘show!’ – the smoke machines have been hard at work, a grand piano visible through the stage haze.  Then the lights go up and it’s all on.

Australian Liam Cooper has jetted into Auckland for a breathless two-hour performance of his covers show, ‘a nostalgic catalogue of 40 classic songs from 15 musical legends’. They are all ‘piano men’ as Cooper describes it, including Elton John, John Lennon, Peter Allen, Billy Joel, Steve Wonder and even Freddie Mercury.

When I say ‘breathless’ I mostly mean the audience – though Liam admits that, after doing Christchurch on Wednesday, Wellington on Thursday and now Auckland on Friday, he and the band are ‘pooked’. But, his voice barely falters as he floats from one showstopper to the next, medley-style, interspersed with anecdotes about how the songs came to be written and some touching personal reveals.

Choosing to begin with Billy Joel’s ‘My Life’, Cooper talks about how his mother got him piano lessons at age 5, a similar age to when Joel started learning. He shares how a record deal gone wrong led Joel to work at a piano bar, where everyone mentioned in the lyrics – John at the bar, the waitress practising politics – is a real person in Joel’s life.

Cooper’s rendition of Joel’s Piano Man almost perfectly matches with Joel’s version, complete with harmonica solo. It’s his performances of Billy Joel and later Elton John where, if I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine the real artist is singing. The vocal match is excellent, especially the layered voice resonance in the John songs. With other artists Cooper doesn’t attempt to mimic the vocals and sometimes feels stretched to reach the high notes (he has selected artists with many different voice types, so covering them all well would be hard). The timing and the accuracy of the band are precise, though. It’s a great covers show.

As Cooper explains, entertaining is his full-time job. He tells stories about being flown out to Tokyo one week, Auckland the next – all to perform his show on cruise ships. (He has started a podcast, On Stage at Sea, interviewing the performers on cruise ships). Incredibly, despite regularly transiting through Auckland on his way to gigs, this is his very first performance in Tāmaki Makaurau.

The audience, mainly older, mainly Pākeha, absolutely love it. Cooper delivers the package promised – a night of nostalgia and showmanship. He rocks his sparkly pants and heels, sometimes standing astride the grand piano flanked by two smoke machine geysers.  He works the audience with what can only be described as cute dad jokes and a couple of shaggy dog stories – a very Aussie style of humour. It’s a pleasure to watch him work the audience with such confidence, and despite his tiredness, joy.

His band – a guitarist, drummer, horn player and saxophonist- work hard, boosted by a backing track. Cooper’s no slouch on the piano keys either.

As well as the dad jokes, there is just the right amount of corniness. During an Elton John song Cooper declares ‘something is missing’ then dons an enormous pair of pink sparkly glasses – likely limiting his vision, as they are off 2 minutes later. There’s a conga line of musicians at an appropriate stage in ‘Copabacana’. During’ Bohemian Rhapsody’, guitarist Noah nails the solo by Brian May, standing astride the grand piano. Cooper grabs a leaf blower and completes the picture by blowing Noah’s shoulder length locks back.  Jimmy, the saxophonist, surprises us with his previously hidden talent in dancing.

The back row are up on their feet, and three ladies in the front row scoot to the side so they can boogie, too. At the end of the night, many audience members are on their feet in a standing ovation.

There’s a ‘fun game’ where we get to vote online for the best piano man of all time. The process is complicated though – we have to find the QR codes in the foyer at interval and access Cooper’s website. I’m not sure many people voted, but those who did were vocal – yelling ‘Elton!’ through the show. Yes, Elton ‘won’ the Auckland show and Cooper played two Elton songs as promised to finish the show.

Liam Cooper’s King of the Keys does what it says on the label – it’s entertainment.  If you were a big fan of any of the artists, you’d already know the anecdotes Cooper tells before launching into (part of) the song, but if you’re an enthusiast they add colour to the music. A well put together show that will no doubt return.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

A good tickling of the ivories is always something I enjoy and Liam Cooper sure knows how to tickle them.

King of the Keys is a theatrical performance that pays tribute to famous piano-playing legends like Elton John, Billy Joel and Ray Charles. The audience is asked to go online to vote for their favourite piano man of all time – the winner will be announced at the end of the evening with one of their songs finishing the show.

This is the first time King of the Keys is being performed in New Zealand and the first time outside Australia. Tonight’s Christchurch audience is here for a good time. You can feel it.

Liam Cooper bounds onto the stage with an energy and joy that fills the James Hay Theatre.

For the next almost two hours, the audience moves, grooves and sings along to around 35 of some the best-known numbers from piano music legends over the last 50 years.

Cooper is clearly a very talented performer. He is totally relaxed in front of the almost full house in the James Hay, introducing the songs with interesting narratives about them.

It’s a tough gig performing songs that are known to us all, made famous by legends like Queen and The Beatles. Cooper carries this off extremely well, particularly where the arrangements vary slightly from the original but are not too different that the audience is going to be unhappy. Elton John’s “Rocketman” and The Beatles “Let it Be” are the two standouts here arrangements-wise.

It takes the first few songs – Billy Joels “Piano Man” and “Uptown Girl”, Marc Cohn’s “Walking in Memphis” and Peter Allen’s “I go to Rio” – for Cooper to find his rhythm. It feels as though his microphone mix and levels are not quite right; he’s sounding a bit off mic.

This seems to come right for Barry Manilow’s “Mandy”, with a bit of reverb on his microphone, but then it’s back again for Elton John’s “Benny and the Jets.”

Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely” is fabulous – Cooper’s voice is a great match for Wonder’s pitch and delivery of the original and I’d like to hear more Stevie Wonder in the show for that reason – perhaps “Superstition”?

The first half finishes with a real crowd favourite – “Let it Be” – which gets everyone swaying and singing along. Then the second half starts with a bang.

Smoke, lights and there’s Liam Cooper standing above the piano playing a keytar (synthesiser held like a guitar on a strap around the neck and shoulders) opening with the 1984 Van Halen hit, “Jump”. We are off!

With some sweet piano playing from Cooper in Bruce Hornsby’s “The Way It Is” and just as sweet vocal delivery in Meatloaf’s “I Would Do Anything for Love”, we are all having a great time.

The second half of the show included the crowd favourite “Bohemian Rhapsody” which is outstanding – again showcasing Coopers upper vocal range into falsetto.

And who was voted as top piano man of all time as voted by us? Elton John of course.

The standing ovation and applause from the audience at the end of King of the Keys is well deserved. You can feel the happiness and joy in the theatre, something we will all take home with us.

Photo credits: Brayden Smith, BCS Imaging.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer