Jo Bywater, Gig Review. Underground Acoustic, Everyman Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Jo Bywater has been away from her own walk of life for too long, the dedication to helping others achieve their own goals, whether through collaboration or intense work ethic has not been lost in the appreciation of the adopted Merseyside singer/songwriter but it has meant that the local area has missed with much inevitable sadness Ms. Bywater’s own insightful lyrics and contribution to the acoustic scene.

Armed with a set of new songs and guitars aching to play them, the very talented musician delved into the heart of the Everyman Theatre’s underground room and laid out her forthcoming wares for the attention of a midweek crowd, the dedicated and the ravenous of musical spirit, the ones who are always in the mood to hear music no matter the weather and who oblivious to trends and the call of their living room.

Jo Bywater is a musician to whom respect is always due, you don’t just listen to her, you are expected to truly listen, like a play by Shakespeare, Pinter or Mark Rylance, you don’t just attend, you revel in the majesty and intensity of the marriage of words and delicate smooth guitar.

The thought of new songs by such an artist is always enough to make you salivate, to drool at the prospect of the day when they will be available to sit in your ears all day rather than the fleeting moments of first contact in which they are tried out at a live and humble venue. It is in that first listen that love opens, the barest crack, the smallest sliver of light at what may have been the longest, darkest tunnel; it is a light always carried with vigour in her words by Jo Bywater.

The tracks hold their own special resonance as they breathe for the first time in the Everyman, under Hope Street’s artistic gaze and as songs such as Empty Promises, Day Glow, the fantastic and unnerving Graze, Drops in the Waterfall, Say Everything and Do Nothing and the truth of existence in Crossroads left their healthy mark on the ambience of the Everyman Theatre, no more than 30 feet away from the luminary Jonathan Pryce powering through an audience’s soul, so too did Jo Bywater offer insight and meaning, one ready to be released in full.

With great appreciation at the thought of having Ms. Bywater back in the very heart of Liverpool’s acoustic scene, this was just the start of big things to come.

Ian D. Hall