Tag Archives: The Waterboys

The Waterboys, Where The Action Is. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Almost everybody wants to know Where The Action Is, the engagement between a group of people in which the dance of ideas are pitched and the sway of the carefully selected phrase is allowed to tightly wind itself around the listener’s heart and soul. The action is a call to arms, the latest rally in the never-ending fight against futility and the mundanity of life which dictates that stagnation is special, almost lauded, proposed by people who have no understanding of the right to stride onwards, to take heed of the Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and act accordingly.

The Waterboys, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. (2019).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

The sound is enigmatic, sincere, almost poetry within itself, add into the equation the lyrical robustness that flows elegantly as if navigating, taming a winter storm at sea, then it becomes clear why Mike Scott and The Waterboys continue to impress the audiences that eagerly await the announcement of a gig in their area, almost choir like in their appreciation, they sing to a glory that gathers rhythm and insightful prose together in a sweeping gesture that makes the heart beat faster and the mind moved in unison.

The Waterboys, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. (2018).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Anniversaries are special, they remind us just how far we have come in the search for ourselves and our time at the helm of our own personal blues, our backdrop of the fiddle pulsating away between the lyrics of the song we sing, as we take a pen to the wall and cross off yet another year, another celebration in the pursuit of an added dream. We cross off the years and then we look back, we survey the happiness and sometimes sour and we revel in them, for it is in the life we live that makes the anniversary special.

The Waterboys, Out Of All This Blue. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

It is with the precious salute of acknowledged respect that one can take an album and relish in the change, even if ever so slight, in appearance between the new sound on the block and the established, the in your ears reliable resonance that you feel as though you know you are always going to want.

The Waterboys, Gig Review. Empire Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Mike Scott offers so much of himself on stage that the decency of the man shines through with the glow of warm African sunset and the truth of a great Scottish artist.

Returning to Liverpool as part of their latest tour and to what should be considered a natural home for The Waterboys, the band played a set that was both outrageously enjoyable but also deeply conscious of the audiences wishes to be entertained and informed, to not just be the type of gig in which the flickering neon lights glaze the eyes but instead offer a type of natural absolution to the day, the warmth of that deep African sunset illuminating the thoughts with effortless wisdom.

The Waterboys, Modern Blues. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Some fortunate people in this world are just born to deliver poetry to the mass population. Some, no matter what form that poetry should take or whether accompanied by the delicate sound of an acoustic guitar and the wistful nodding of a bespectacled, beard wearing and book loving saxophonist who clicks his fingers between notes, are just put on this Earth to urge others to turn away from a world of bleak impossibilities to a world where a single word in the right place can level mountains and take down Governments.

The Waterboys, Gig Review. Liverpool Philhamonic Hall. (2013)

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

In recent times Mike Scott and his band The Waterboys have given audiences in Liverpool some of the best nights out imaginable. To start their latest tour in a city they patently enjoy performing in is a high compliment to the crowds that make their way to any venue the band would make their way to.

The range of the music, the sense of drama that Mike Scott exudes though makes the Philharmonic Hall a natural stopping off point and whilst perhaps nothing could compare to the theatre provided when they performed tracks from their stunning album An Appointment With Mr. Yeats, this celebration of the album Fisherman’s Blues was none the less greeted like an old friend by the audience.

The Waterboys, Gig Review. Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

Photograph by Ian D. Hall

Originally published by L.S. Media. February 2nd 2011.

For some, the divisions between poetry and music are so entrenched that they, no matter what, should never be crossed. However for Mike Scott and The Waterboys and a full house of appreciative fans of W.B Yeats, the genre was not only blurred but redrawn and redefined. Billed as an Appointment with Mr. Yeats, the band pushed the realms of performance art with their reading of the Irish poet’s familiar poems set alongside some of the most stunning music to grace the Philharmonic Hall.

The Waterboys, Gig Review. Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

Mike Scott at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. Picture by Ian D. Hall

Originally published by L.S. Media. March 25th 2012.

L.S. Media Rating *****

Not content with releasing arguably the best album of 2011, it seems that The Waterboys will do anything to prove that they will be considered as the best live act to visit Liverpool this year.