Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
When you find something so entrancingly unique, so wonderfully odd and unconventionally offbeat you just have to embrace it, nourish it and hope that it stays the distance and others see the musical imagery on offer. It arguably doesn’t come any more unique than Whiskey Moonface’s debut album One Blinding Dusky Dusk.
Little Sparrow at the Studio 2, Liverpool 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Although some artists grow on you over time, there is an argument for the thought that your first opinion of them is normally the one that is correct. With life becoming far too fast to keep up at times before the next trend or even whim, the next vogue act or person in favour on television. Sometimes you have to make a stand, draw a long line around yourself and say, bear with me as I really want to savour this thanks and in Little Sparrow, the line demands to painted over in several coats of luminous yellow paints and a few traffic stops signs flashing stop for good measure.
Susie Jones at Studio 2 in Liverpool May 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
In a night that was filled to overflowing with very cool and deserving female musicians making all the headlines inside Studio 2 on Parr Street, to open up ahead of the likes of Little Sparrow, Ingrid Frosland and the superb Norwegian band Kalandra might be considered a tad daunting. However, for Susie Jones, daunting is just another word for showing exactly what you are made of and watching her and her two fellow musicians on stage, the equally cool Dave Parker and Rob Kentell, daunting was a by word for secure and musically affluent.
Joining the eclectic spring programme, The Capstone Theatre is delighted to welcome back Allerton Brass. Performing a live series of cinematic pieces from movies that we all know and love, they come to the Capstone for one night only on Saturday 24th May.
Established in Liverpool, the 28-piece band will present an evening of classical pieces from a variety of music from the movies. Whether it is the romance of Gone with the Wind and Romeo and Juliet, being “shaken not stirred” with James Bond, re-living childhood memories with Disney or simply being moved by Private Ryan, there will be something for everyone. Not only that, the ensemble will be joined with a significant helping by John Williams, one of the most successful movie composers of all time – making the movie concert the complete package.
Michael Bolton, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. Photograph by Ian D. Hall
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There is a certain satisfaction to be gleaned from watching Michael Bolton on stage. The sheer effortlessness in which he sings, the manner of his performance and the smooth content feel of the music grabs an audience from the very beginning and long after he has left the stage there are still fans glued to their seats, mentally and physically exhausted by the intense feelings that have come from one person, one band, so utterly captivated by the magnetism of the song.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
To walk on stage infront of audience as a virtual unknown, to throw yourself upon the musical mercy of an audience that had been building themselves up for the main event, to do this whilst the spotlight glares down upon you and in some sort of electrical judgment has your life in the claws of its wiry hands and give a set of your own songs the type of true belief usually found in someone whose established credentials has seen them through a few decades; then you know you are witnessing the start of something that could go a long way to being a star of their generation.
In 1997, a British film about six out-of-work Sheffield steelworkers with nothing to lose, took the world by storm becoming one of the most successful British films ever made. Now, the boys are back, only this time, they really have to go The Full Monty…live on stage.
Simon Beaufoy, the Oscar winning writer of the film, has gone all the way with this hilarious and heartfelt adaptation that’s getting standing ovations every night and in which will be coming to the Liverpool Empire Theatre for one week only from the 20th-25th October 2014.
Bold Street’s LEAF Café played host to the official launch of Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF) 2014 where guests were offered a sneak preview into one of Liverpool’s most exciting and unique festivals which returns to the city next month from 7th-15th June.
Now in its thirteenth consecutive year, the highly anticipated Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF) is renowned for bringing a culturally rich collection of talented artists from across the Arab world and has become a fixture of Liverpool’s cultural calendar, with attractions and events that will appeal to everyone.
Rick Wakeman, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There are some things that are well worth the wait, even if you didn’t realise just why you had waited for them until the first note came crashing down around your senses and you were transported through time and the love of literature to a point of sheer bliss.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *
Cast: Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Zac Efron, Dave Franco, Brian Huskey, Ike Barinholtz, Carla Gallo, Halston Sage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Lisa Kudrow, Jerrod Carmichael, Craig Roberts, Ali Cobrin, Hannibal Buress.
It seriously makes you worry for the future of American comedy if all a studio can come up with is a film that relies far too much displaying the bodily differences between the two main male leads, more needless swearing than you find underlined in a dictionary by somebody with limited vocabulary and an over reliance on showcasing the university fraternity system and their spat with modern day suburbia. It has been down before, with better artistry, finer scripts and with a couple of notable exceptions with better leads and supporting cast. Bad Neighbours is no Animal House. It even has the dubious pleasure of somehow managing to make the National Lampoon films seem like gold dust.