Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There is a calming effect on the audience to which takes a sense of the pure soul in which to capture when they are on stage. Many have this quality, but it is in tandem with the exuberance of the immense, the industrial like performance which whips up a frenzy in the aisles and leaves the heart thumping, sometimes out of time with the message in the set.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
For many the sound of various anthems, hits, and obscurities that came their way via the beauty and inner workings of the local pub juke box, was an introduction to a memory that would inspire, stimulate, move and arouse in equal measure, and be the backdrop to the days when the world was cast in shadow; it only takes a line, a moment on the drums, a scintillating vocal, that guitar – that instrument of expression which to many a rock sound would simply not exist, for the world to make sense.
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Award-winning band Clannad said farewell to Liverpool, and Liverpool said a reluctant sad farewell to Clannad.
It’s been 50 years since this exceptional Irish band from Donegal bounced onto the music scene with their eclectic mix of traditional Celtic music and new age ethereal vibes.
Legendary, influential and culturally important, the band was formed in 1970 by siblings Moya, Ciaran and Pol Brennan and their uncles Noel and Padraig Duggan. Unfortunately, Padraig passed away in 2016 and the band gave him a “shout out” at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall last night to the delight of a packed audience. For a short time, sister Enya had been part of the line-up but now ploughs her own path.
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In another plane of existence it would be fair to openly state that Me And Deboe would be one of the biggest, and well known duos on the planet, with a sound, a sense of urgent creativity that flows through each song and with a passion for expression that arguably has only been matched by Simon and Garfunkel, it would make sense, it would be the conversation of wisdom, to see and insist that Me And Deboe would be shaking the tree of indifference and pulling up those that follow with them.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
On any night in which providence strikes, to open yourself up to the elements, to throw yourself down on the barbed wire of artistic integrity and be seen, to be witnessed as the moment in which the evening’s flourished bloom begins, that is fortune, but in the hands of Charlie McKeon as he set the tone of the evening for Thom Morecroft’s album launch at Liverpool’s Studio 2, it was of farsighted destiny.
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The vibe is just as important as the aftermath, the importance of feeling something in the air begin to glow, to shimmer with excitement, the build-up of atmosphere. The sense of the occasion grow like vines from the ground up, that vibe is what makes an evening become an event and when that event takes the attendee to places they thought they might not see again, when they feel the fine hairs on the back of their neck stand on end and the mind is completely transfixed to the point where they don’t know if anyone else is the room, that is when the vibe breaches the soul, that is when they know they have been taken to Heaven and back.
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Celebration, we arguably don’t do it enough, or if we do then we do it for the wrong reasons, we find the excuse to congratulate almost anything and we often neglect the purposeful and the driven to our own cost.
It is in the resolute and focused aim that White Little Lies took to the stage at Studio 2, not even the spectre of November’s horrendous weather, the grey skies leaving its sternly fixed gaze over the Liverpool skyline could deter Daniel Saleh and Vanessa Murray from delivering a set full of mastery, poise and the squeal of delight from the audience.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
In the right hands the combination of guitar and violin is one of extreme beauty, they complement each other, they add a mournful dynamic to joy, they imagine upbeat righteousness in the midst of passion and yet they also bring a sound of hope to a place where life is in need of comfort; it matters not if the sound is one of the ethereal or inscribed with a regimental jig, what matters is that the heart and soul of a song is joined together by the players and their instruments.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
You always hope to catch the effervescent in a performance, the sincerity of the lively and the dynamic in the same thread of the act, whilst understanding that it is the memory of a certain time, of nostalgia, making the hairs on the back of the neck stand firmly to attention and the whisper of the music fall in love once more.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cal Ruddy at Studio 2, Liverpool. October 2019. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
There is no greater sense of satisfaction in the eye of the gig attendee or fan than to witness the musician-songwriter emerge fully into the light, the cocoon shed, the wings spread out as wide as possible and the flight they are about to urge you to join them on. A journey that has been practised and perfected upon and then with visible joy etched upon the faces of all who present, the artist earns their wings; all you can do now after all the support, all the concerns and applause is to wish them well, for the next time you hear about them it might be with a personal postcard sent from Elliston Place.