It was a huge night on Wednesday as young local singer/songwriter/piano/guitarplayer James Cooper showed us how much latent support he has in his home town, filling Newtown’s Vanguard to capacity with friends and fans. With nearly 600 friends signed up to his MySpace page and his own mailing list from his www.james-cooper.com website, it was a great case-study for the pulling power of the internet, because the only other marketing we’d done for the launch was one small black and white ad in one local street press mag. CD sales at the gig were strong and the crowd enthusiastically received James’ live performance, as almost everyone in the room had heard samples from the album online, but nobody had yet seen James perform in Sydney. With a five piece band James impressed us with his professionalism, giving the set moments of light and shade, from big rock moments to small, intimate solo spots on the piano. James is up next at Sydney University’s Manning Bar and the Vic On The Park in Sept and Oct. You owe it to yourself to see this guy play before he starts packing out larger venues.