Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5/10
The Liverpool Philharmonic Hall resonates to the sound of ghosts, the aural phantoms of pleasure who have been retained and thankfully allowed to stay filtering and flitting through the expanse of work that has been undertaken in the prestigious venue, all of them forever it seems to harness the energy of every new act that comes along and plays to the gallery and the crowd.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There is an easy going charm that cannot be ignored when it comes to watching Robert Cray on stage, the deferential that meets the cool and the understated charismatic. The smile in the beautifully creative that greets each song with a polite hello and then plays with each string as if it’s attached to an angel’s heart, sometimes being as rough as the angel likes and causing a blush on the cheeks of the cherubs. At other points smooth, joyous and almost velvet like in its sincerity; it is the charm and ability of a man who knows which angel likes it which way and which has the touch of the Devil in them.
Let It Be at The Royal Court, Liverpool. October 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Liverpool’s rich, almost exuberant, heritage for popular music has a long and proud history but it one that is missing a vital component to the story, one that history, fate and circumstance has seen fit to take away from the city that arguably gave popular culture to the U.K. after the Post-War austerity. The Beatles, the foursome who kick started a revolution, never returned to the city in their absolute pomp and ceremony in which to give the fans who propelled them to the top of the charts a sense of completion, of revelling in the majesty that the progressive nature of the band would have gone down a storm in at any of the venues in the city at the time.
Dean Friedman at the Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. October 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The city that doesn’t know how to stop singing is always enhanced by a visitor of repute from beyond its natural domain. Many of the greats from across the seas, from beyond the realms in which the Atlantic Ocean divides and sometimes conquers as it crashes into the cliffs and harbours and steals moment after moment of time and crumbling portions of land, have made their way to Liverpool to remind the city that America and the musical empire of Britain are forever linked and entwined.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There is something quite comforting about watching Squeeze perform their huge back catalogue of hits, particularly when their set is now liberally laced with tracks from their first brand new album in 17 years – that being Cradle to the Grave, the “soundtrack” for Danny Baker’s life story telling sitcom currently running on B.B.C.2 starring Peter Kay.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There are performance poets, there are whirlwinds of poetic infusion but rarely do the two ever meet, Allen Ginsberg aside, none really have the pulling power that the modern world and medium fully deserves with the exception of the very positive and wonderfully punk, the gracious Dr. John Cooper Clarke.
To open up a night of music offered by Squeeze with the whirlwind persona that resides in John Cooper Clarke, a selection of poems beaten out of thin air and which magically entranced and threatened to spill out and dominate, not just the night ahead, but the thoughts of the audience for a good few weeks, was one in which should be applauded with great nods of enthusiasm to see a poetry master at work.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
It seems hard to believe that Liverpool had never had the pleasure of hosting Joanne Shaw Taylor before, that in all the years the absolute blistering sound that comes from arguably the Queen of British Blues had never dominated the Liverpool skyline, had never been heard in a huddled teeming mass before and had only been cherished in various houses, in the front rooms and bedrooms of the enlightened and the reverential.
Federal Charm at The Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. October 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
British Rock and Blues is in arguably the healthiest state that it has had the pleasure to be in for many years. The renaissance of the genres has perhaps come at the expense of the U.K.’s prime export of Heavy Metal and in many cases the once dominant pop scene and culture but for The Blues none of that matters; rude health it seems does come at a cost somewhere else upon the many lines.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
An evening with one of Liverpool’s favourite set of performers has arguably never been so laid back, filled with sensational imagery and the wonderful harking back to childhood reminisce as the sound of The Southbound Attic Band gently resonated though the pages of abundant books and the visibly moved audience at Waterloo’s cultural oasis of Write Blend.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
There is an elegance that just comes naturally with both Miles Hunt and Erica Nockalls, a sense of the Midland’s sublime that flows as vibrantly as the River Stour and is forever to be seen in both their acoustic pairing and in the wider circle of The Wonderstuff. They are a pair of musicians that just ooze quality, great stories wrapped in tremendous violin playing and angry yet serenely led guitar that at times it is possible to feel apologetic to anyone who has not come across them.