Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

When there are no more worlds in which to conquer, the explorer lays down their map and their compass, and slowly, but surely, disappears into the background, eventually merging with the times and places they have discovered. For many of us that holds true, the vast majority of those around you stop discovering many years before their time, they take out the compass one final time, put the backpack of half ideas formed, and then take root and watch the camp fire flicker with memories that slowly turn to dust and the tear of what was once passed.

For Pentangle’s Jacqui McShee, the collection of noted sticks for the camp fire has never been thought of being undertaken, the journey she started in the British Folk Clubs still one that resonates over time and like a beacon built on the face of a high hill that warns of impending danger, invasion or news from the shires, the intensity of the flame that burns is not a message to slow down, but instead to keep striking out, to keep the enthusiasm of performance alive.

One of the earliest advocates of the then new approach to the flowering British Folk scene, Jacqui McShee has kept the name of Pentangle alive, more than just a beating heart resting by the river of time, surveying past adventures with a tear bound eye. This is still beautiful rage, the harmony of expression and joy brought together to fight of the dampening and damaging aspect of the modern world to forget the battles won, the sacrifices made when groups such as Pentangle and Steeleye Span came along between the finality of The Beatles and the spirit of 70s Rock in all its different guises.

Despite the Philharmonic stage threatening to dwarf Jacqui McShee and her two superbly adept musicians, Tom Chapman and Mike Piggott, the resonance of the music was such that the hall itself felt tamed, a physical understanding that this was splendour in the making, a personification of all that was, and that has remained to be so.

Whilst only being on stage for a short while, songs such as Dragonfly, Cruel Sisters, Lord Franklin and Will The Circle Be Unbroken touched the hearts of the respectful crowd, a pleasure of seeing into the distance the burning fires of the beacon, urging the carrier of the message and the compass to keep striding on, for in the hands of Jacqui McShee, this celebration of one of the genre’s greatest finds will keep on burning bright.

A hope that Jacqui McShee can be persuaded to come to Liverpool once more and do a full show will always be in the forefront of the minds of the fans, one that really does need to be fulfilled.

Ian D. Hall