Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

One of the more disturbing aspects of life is in the way that many will seek to have some power over the individual, practised under the banner of the well meaning but socially supremacy or showing dominance over thought, of suggesting that a person has to be like everybody else in order to get along. The phrase, wouldn’t you be happier if you dressed like us, acted like us, become one of us, is one born out of such double standards, one in which society expects the norm to adhered too, even in perhaps the most tolerant and so called accepting times.

To stand out in any way is one of the main weapons the individual has in life, to shoot an arrow of uniqueness, perhaps eccentricity, most certainly the beauty of personality, let it fall where it must, for Daisy Gill has the next arrow covered and the smile on her face as she performs suggests that she is not afraid to use it.

In the shadow of the old Johnson’s factory in Bootle, in the company of ghosts from an era now long gone, stands a woman on stage to whom, distinctiveness in the modern age is everything, not only does she carry that style off  but she carries a set of songs along with her that are brutally cool and arrow sharp, they pierce any resistance with honour and in a world that verges of human homogenisation; Daisy Gill is a standard bearer for the chic, the vocally alluring and the sensual in a time of discomfort.

The Party in the Park, the call to the local residents of North Bootle to remember exactly what community means, the chance to sit with a neighbour, to bring your children together, to put aside the petty and the spectres of an insane Government, was the perfect place in which to show off the talent of Ms. Gill.

In the songs The Broken Heart, the poignant I’m Still Going Strong and Bonnie and Clyde, the feeling of the original played out with immense satisfaction. Three new tracks for the audience, for some perhaps a brave move baring in mind that many who took advantage of the sun and the feeling of warm grass under their feet would not have heard many of the songs on offer during the day, and yet one in which Ms. Gill strode through with purpose and invincibility; an emotion which was to transfer itself across the remainder of the day.

This was a performance that fully captured the spirit of the day, Ms. Gill resonated individuality and the need to remember just how important that is perfectly.

Ian D. Hall