Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Hearsay is all well and good, but if you want the truth, you go directly to the source.
The debut album is always one that captures the spirit of what went before, the old adage of it being a reflection of your life up until the moment it is released, no matter how old the artist, or even what genre they put their thoughts out into the world from, the debut is important, it is the standard bearer for what is come.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
One of Liverpool’s own, a performer who has been long associated with the city, a musician of high integrity and blushing music, one who for quite some time has deserved the accolades that come with a night at the Philharmonic Hall; in Roxanne de Bastion’s supporting of Marillion on this tour, to come back to Liverpool, to immerse herself within the friends she made and in the city where her latest album is held as an example of the heights that can be reached, that is now the position that all should be attaining.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
There is no flaw that cannot be overcome, there is no praise that should be anything but sincere, to deceive in such actions, to neglect both yourself and the object of your applaud is to do disservice to the world. In such actions the beauty of Roxanne de Bastion’s Heirlooms & Hearsay only stands taller, it is not so much a moment of beauty that captivates and spreads the sense of optimism, of joyful response to the questions that unfold but also one that frames how deep seated the artist’s thoughts go when they see parallels between the world they see and that in which their grandparents witnesses.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
People tend to confuse themselves sometimes, the Universe is spectacular like that, believing that to be the best requires the finest of everything, the largest venue perhaps, the abundance of both food and drink on tap, and in this day and age either all for nothing or they are willing to brag about in the Netherspehere of social media that they paid thousands of pounds to a tout outside and that makes the evening perfect.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Hearing a new song from Roxanne de Bastion is like holding hands with an old friend, there is so much warmth in that moment, so much energy to share between the art and the soul that it connects and fuses, the organs melding into one and finally let go as the love is embraced and jointly nodded at in appreciation of what brings to the other. To not get a tingle down the spine, to not enjoy the sensation is surely to suggest that you have a Heart of Stone.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There is a reason we fall in love with someone and it normally has a lot to do with their actions, their demeanour, their faith and hopefully most importantly the way they capture and echo your thoughts in art and their voice resonates how you feel, about yourself, the world and every heartbeat in between.
Roxanne de Bastion, a much loved figure on the Liverpool acoustic scene, understands this, she simply plays the guitar and allows a series of truths to unfold in the audience’s presence, she plays with the notes, she offers the lyrics but it is the listener, the crowd member that finds out how to Run with their imagination unhindered.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
In the comfortable surroundings of one of the City’s less obvious gig venues, the clamour of evening tea and daily tasked conversation rising just as the summer moon makes it’s appearance in the Liverpool sky, the upstairs at Leaf, always the height of serenity and musical appreciation, became an oasis for memory, contemplation and praise, as Revolver, The Beatles 7th studio album was lauded and acclaimed by the packed out audience and as each song was performed by some of the very great talents in the Liverpool music community, there was undoubtedly, beautifully, magic in the Merseyside air.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
To book end a month in Liverpool, to go from the searing heat that infused the Liverpool Loves weekend down at the Pier Head to closing what in some terms may seem like a small residency in the oncoming drizzle of the final chapter that Summer could muster at the Kazimier Garden, is something that very few performers could hope to achieve or even see in the sprawling streets of Liverpool’s musical heritage.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
In every song there should be so much passion placed that it must ooze and clamber out of the stereo and find its way Blob like into the ears of the listener to become enthused with the lyrical coolness and the itching to understand the depth in which some musical instruments can take human emotion to.
Life without passion is just the same as finding oneself watching six hours of television a day and guzzling a bottle of wine without truly tasting it every night, the lustre, the shine of some freedoms are never worth it and enthusiasm for the world soon starts to wane into nothing.
Roxanne de Bastion at the Liverpool Loves Festival 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The sun was on its waning path across the River Mersey as Roxanne de Bastion took to the Dovedale Social Stage. The journey to the city’s Liverpool Loves Festival may have been a fraught and arduous one, but it was one that led to Ms. Bastion being greeted like an old friend and one in which the day would ultimately revel in her way of musical story-telling, the fire in the Folk and the wonderful way in which to turn one particular song associated with one genre into the epitome of another.