Lizzie Nunnery, Leaf, Liverpool. 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Lizzie Nunnery commands respect. Four simple words that are as exact as day must surely follow night or as life will find a way, for anyone catching Lizzie Nunnery for the first time, the heavens may have aligned just at the right moment for them to see for themselves just exactly why Mellowtone rate her so highly and why Liverpool music goers absolutely insist that the woman breathes guitar chords, she plays with such analytical and pure mind that you cannot but be helped drawn into the notes and words.

The musician is more like an orator, the simple passion of a person delivering a song of truth, rallying the faithful against ineptitude and political insanity whilst carefully holding an offering of pleasant gratitude to those who see the world for the beauty that can be attained.

Opening for Kathryn Williams at Leaf is no easy task but even with some in the audience having driven many hundreds of miles to see the latter perform, there was a steel fixed gaze upon Ms. Nunnery’s face in which she knew she would captivate them as much as the person she openly admired.

Aided by the sublime Vidar Norheim throughout, Ms. Nunnery performed tracks such as the brilliant One Day I Wanna Get Straight, A Smile and a Knife, in which she made sure just exactly who she was thinking of when singing this terrific track and the huge nod to the light that has just passed on in the shape of Tony Benn M.P., the tribute to Ernest Mark in England Loves A Poor Boy and the superb set closers of Sand and Poverty Knocks and by the end of her peerless set, there were many in Leaf who simply understood exactly what had come to pass.

The woman on a mission to get people stimulated and stirred, to get encouraged and excited had more than done her job, she had galvanised and set the mast upon high on a day when the poor got that little bit more in debt and hollow words were not to be used by anybody.

Lizzie Nunnery is certainly a class act, a one woman musical preacher whose flock seems to grow ever more enamoured and ready to spread the word.

Ian D. Hall