Alan Triggs, Gig Review. Party In The Park, Bootle.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The very model of the unruffled and serenely played, summer days in the sunshine, gently wafting at a short sighted errant bee that might mistake your patterned shirt for a previously untapped exotic flower, your family beside you on the grass and the smells of the frying burger rampaging across the once regimented grass of the local bowling green. For days like this in Bootle, where for too long the stress of being ignored by Government has played on the mind of the local community, it could only be the appearance of the superb Alan Triggs that would weave such a spell of undisturbed composure in the air.

Like Billy Kelly and Interobang, the continuality of the Party in the Park was brought back into focus by the return of Alan Triggs to the Hub stage under the glare of the sun and the focus of what the day in the town was about, bringing people together, making sure that the often deserted by officialdom town by the Mersey had something pure, something exceptional to celebrate.

Alan Triggs has be noted as faultless, an artist who exudes calm, who plays and sings songs of wonderful tragic warmth, a cast iron resolve in amongst the stiffening breeze and the passing over of many truths, it was no wonder that the audience who had made their way to the Party in the Park greeted his set with sheer confidence and admiration in the musician.

To cover yourself in glory is perhaps seeking too high an accolade, it can only lead to a type of aggressive demeanour and stand offishness; to be given that praise willingly and without thought of favour returned though is to remain humble, to be granted a time on stage which thrilled an audience and be received with the applause of congratulations is to have succeeded perfectly.

In a set that contained the songs Hey Mister, Fly Away, The Air I Breathe, Algy and She’s The One, Mr. Triggs continued the great work he started last year in the same venue; a modest man of enormous talent, recognised as such for the sheer pleasure he brought to the crowd under the shadow of the old Johnson’s building and the hope of the future.

Ian D. Hall