Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Let The Music Play On, a mantra for living, so much more vital in these desperate unfathomable times, in these moments in which swing from black moods and anger across every nation and in the souls of those who wish to bring destruction and mayhem to downbeat, the world is caving in on itself epochs; Let The Music Play On for it is the one thing that sooths the savage beast and keeps us in our place and grounded whilst giving us ultimate hope.
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The much admired Jodie Schofield, the founder of the mantra Be Lovely Day, may have found herself in a different climate this last few months, but even having relocated to Cornwall, another pasture with its own sense of identity and which mirrors Liverpool perfectly, the artist’s excellent work carries on in a city that will never forget the music of SheBeat.
The sign above the door proudly stated the commercial and the endearing truth, “It all started here”, one of the city’s music ambassadors, Ian Prowse, reflects in his song Does This Train Stop On Merseyside that a lay line runs down the very street the club is situated upon and to many, whether in the heyday of the Mersey Sound with bands such as The Beatles, Gerry and The Pacemakers and The Swinging Blue Jeans permanently filling out the venue or to modern day audiences who find themselves in a slightly different version of the brick built cellar but still immerse themselves in the music provided over the years by such bands and artists as The Fast Camels, Steve Hogarth, Fish, The Arctic Monkeys, Adele and Whisky Ginger Johnson; regardless of the era The Cavern is a musical shrine to the best and the beautiful who have and who still wish, to perform in Liverpool’s most iconic music venue.
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The bench mark so keenly set out by the month of January is normally set at a medium position, the year to come not wanting to have to work so hard to leap past records as if produced by the great Lyn Davies or Jonathan Edwards, the quick jump into the musical express never one to be truly expected as the audience and band alike always find themselves unravelling their web like bones from a season of warmth and inside festivities.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
It is a crime to miss out on a filled room with like mind, appreciative people, a crime which is exonerated if the venue is sold out but not when things such as television, just things, unwarranted intrusions in to the life of going out and being social, of supporting musical talent in any form or guise; it is a misdeed, a felony to miss out on the man with the pencil neck tie and a smile as broad as the Mersey, Jimmy Rae and the Moonshine Girls.
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The devout and the inspired will always go to the final preaching of the long lived and the elegantly able; like a fine wine served at room temperature in a Guernsey hotel, the taste is enough to feel inebriated just to be in the company of the exulted and prime music stalwarts. For the fans of Status Quo they were not about to allow their main hero of Francis Rossi or the memory of the band that started out all those decades ago to simply fade into the realm of acoustic sessions, this final night of the last ever electric tour in the U.K. was to be a celebration of all things Quo.
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There are many things that are remiss in this world, the fact that valiant AOR specialists REO Speedwagon have never made the journey to the heart of British music, the city that gave modern music to the masses, is surely one of them. Yet if the band were going to visit Liverpool for the first ever time then to be in the Echo Arena as the Christmas cheer bit down hard as the headliners played their last ever electric gig on British soil, then that was a present for many in the audience worth waiting for.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
You only have to go by the sound of the crowd to understand what music means to the people. In the end it is not about mass popularity, the endless soul destroying fight with fame and supposed fortune, it is how your art makes others feel deep in their souls and if you can have a sold out Philharmonic Hall audience singing their hearts out, making the foundations and the walls shake slightly in anticipation and the low moan of pleasure in the ears as hearts spill open over 35 years worth of love and affection for arguably one of the architects of British Synth Pop, The Human League, then the crowd cannot be wrong.
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Delicate as bird taking its first flight across a cloudless sky or as subtle as the first whispering of a night of Prog heralded by the sound of a meaningful but floating cymbal, Acadian Driftwood sound as beautiful and peaceful as the cries of dawn against the savagery that life can throw at you but they also catapult lines of extreme dynamic potential into the mix at the same time. It is pure and overpoweringly elusive, something you can imagine holding but knowing full well that the musicians are in complete control of this dream like state.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Darkness comes quickly this time of year, it has the appearance of being shrouded in mystery and the decidedly ambiguous, shadows form and egged on by the early onset of street lamps that hang over the heads of the wandering seeker of music and art as if taking on the form of lonely satellites shining a path between pillar and post; for true illumination though, you have to wander beyond the streets, set the eyes firmly in search of a beacon of hope and know that no matter how dark December is, it is only a few short weeks till the world starts to turn and the light comes flooding back.