Illuminated by cinema screen
back light, their shadows
pestering the divide
of reality and make-believe,
they do their best to not spoil it for others
yet somehow their presence
is enough to destroy the artifice erected.
Too slow, they reason,
the actors have done nothing
for ten minutes, save eat a pie
and wear a sheet;
no patience some people,
bet they liked the sex scene
in the film before mind.
Ian D. Hall 2017
Well God bless Amerikkka,
for today some showed their face to the crowd
and reminded us that the fight
against Fascism is never over;
in the land of the free,
a home from home for me,
I now feel my stomach turn sour
as the grip of power
and turns to war in the East,
veiled threats in Venezuela
and good ol’ boys with short hair
and short fuses
march down the street, their aim
to prove surely how dumb they are.
Lady Liberty, close your eyes,
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Forty years on from his untimely passing, the name Elvis still sells, although perhaps to a younger generation, those to whom the world is moving rapidly away from such sentiment to entertainers who died before their time, the urge to go to Memphis, Tennessee, is not a high priority in life, to sample Nashville, unless they have a musical ear, not a place to go when so many exotic places still remain undiscovered.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The road trip across an entire continent, the sense of travelling with purpose and discovery, not only of a strange and often bewildering land, but of yourself as well, your inner rage, your calm and collected peaceful moments, the tears and the laughter; you don’t get the same response from your soul when all you have done is seen the road through other people’s memories or through the camera lens, it may give you a start but sometimes you do truly have to experience it for yourself.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
There can be no compromise, not in a world hanging by the slenderest of threads to its sanity, to its only means of shouting out to the Universe that it has nothing to fear from those bipeds that somehow hold it hostage every day; for the only assault that humanity should administer is that of perfect noise, of the metal infused musical crowbar to the ears and one that leaves the listener understanding that the Cosmos in all its infinite glory, just wants the Earth to Rock as hard as it can without falling apart.
When you show Britannia tears
She will comfort you, cradle your soul
and make everything alright, show her
the face of heroism, of remaining loyal
to her throughout life, of being faithful
in a world in which she suspects she has done
many wrongs, then her tears are for you
to respect and kiss away gently
as they run down the side of her cheeks.
Britannia is old now, my Queen still fights
on, I see the rage, I feel its heart as she lays down,
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There must always be a part of the day dedicated, if possible, to what has already been, the nod, the sincere salute to the past, for in any generation respect is due across the board, not just to the young groups taking a chance, but to those to whom have been perhaps lost to Time, the singles, the songs that made up such a vast and beautiful array of our music conscience.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The festival, when ran with respect for those willing to come through the gates, who will part with their money in return for a place to sit or stand safely and to whom the point of the exercise is to join in the idea of being part of something bigger, and accessible to all, is one of the great experiences of life; it doesn’t matter how grand, how small, if it makes a crowd happy, if it encourages them to get out more and see the world then it is of significance and important.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It can feel like you’re walking into the unknown, that the words created by the superb Phil Daltrey are so meaningful, so dipped in cool repose and measured by the weight of the city and its outlook towards the rest of the country, one in wishes that it would follow its lead in certain regards more than the village controlled by masked tradition on the Thames, that musicians such as Mr. Daltrey understand tradition, of community so much more than those in the House of Cards; community is all at the end of the day, it what binds us and the unknown can suddenly become a walk along a meadow, full, lush and plentiful.
Where would I be now
If I had the courage of my convictions
as a fumbling teen, ready to shout
and flick a finger or two, doesn’t
matter about this and that,
I am going to go round the world
and write down all that I see,
it doesn’t matter about money,
I just require a sturdy mind
and the bottle to do it;
betrayed before I started
by the spine
which the Doctors missed
and the muscle of love and music of sweet
talking women.