Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Sometimes you just have to applaud the demeanour of a band that has just sweated copious amounts of sweat in the name of the cause. That sweat, almost pouring with the same majestic force as the water that tumbles over Niagara Falls after a torrent of rain has swelled the mighty beast to bursting point, comes ready packaged as part of Boston Manor’s short but high spirited and highly energetic set at the Fury Fest at the East Village Arts Centre.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
The rivalry between the two leading cities of the North-West doesn’t just limit itself to the battles that take place between the four combined sides battling it out for Premiership supremacy, it extends back through recent history in its struggle to been to seen as the second city of the country, the powerhouses of commerce and in its music.
The football is all well and good however, on recent form Manchester shades it, especially with the re-emergence of the only team to actually play their home games in Manchester, but the music and its dominance on the local cultural landscape; that surely has to be down as a thrashing handed out by the city that straddles the Mersey.
Oh, Pioneer at E.V.A.C. Liverpool. May 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
When people criticise the young with the relentless enthusiasm associated with the post Victorian hangover that was so prevalent in the 1960s and ‘70s, the post war side effect of dogmatic unilateral hatred that was once rightly aimed at the forehead of Fascism but turned itself into its own parody by suggesting that all should be dealt with strict unfeeling indifference, that is the time in which to run for the hills and pray to whichever deity counts your musical soul as a personal possession that you never go so far down the route of being obnoxious, that even if it’s one thing only, you will find something to enjoy.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There really is nothing like being at a gig, no other experience comes close; not even a hot date with your dream partner captures the humid, extra special occasion that music in the raw can bring to the mind.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Perhaps the most poignant sentence was uttered towards the end of the nine day showcase of music at L.I.P.A.s Paul McCartney Auditorium as Oscar Vladau-Husevold, vocalist for Norwegian rockers Cloud, said with a the forming of a tear in his eye, the immortal word “Goodbye”.
This was not the way perhaps many of the artists leaving L.I.P.A. would choose to introduce the last song of their set, but it was arguably the most heartbreaking and yet profound moments in the days that have seen some of the most superb of artists to have graced the stage and some of the best music available to watch.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Hype can be a tool in which certain yardsticks are set out to inevitably fail. Hype may gather interest, it may circulate a powerful emotion but the problem with hype is that it soon rusts; it fades into corporate fantasy and the sloth like figure of doomed expectancy. Hype is on the same level as hysteria, it rages and roars but then whimpers like a mouse caught choosing between three different slabs of meagre cheese.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is a cheeky, admirable quality to Tiz Mcnamara that crowds just cannot but help enjoy as he performs on stage in front of them. Having suggested with a glint in his eye and with the voice of pleasurable mischief coming through Leaf’s microphone, that he had swam all the way from Dublin to open for Rosenblume’s E.P. launch, there was no chance that he was going to leave Leaf’s packed audience without a smile on their face and a song in their already packed hearts.
Nora Konstanse, Paul McCartney Auditorium. L.I.P.A., Liverpool. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5/10
There are times when you can sit in an auditorium, with a gathering of people, large or small, the taste of stale beer reeking from the floorboards, the feeling of a thousand echoing performances coming out of the walls to meet you with the stealth like attack of a thousand lost drum sticks floating in the air and a million dropped chords wreak havoc with the senses. That what has just taken place in front of you has the power to shift opinions and level mountains of built up former thoughts; a performance, that if captured on a Geiger counter, would have huge areas being cordoned off as the authorities braced themselves for public attitude fall out.
Mari Hajem in the Paul McCartney Auditorium, L.I.PA., Liverpool. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The feeling of goose pimples appearing on your body for no reason at all is not uncommon. Like all natural bodily functions, holding your breath without realising when something unexpected happens before your eyes, the small unseen nervous tick when grace goes out the window, the pleasure received with a huge unnoticed smile when the day is completed by the sense of overwhelming achievement. All are connected to the same route experience, that of understanding something magical has just taken place in your vicinity and that you are richer for the experience.
Ohlayindigo at the L.I.P.A. 2015 Showcase. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is always a different beat in which your life to. Those that hear it are blessed by which ever deity or Humanist thought they prescribe to, those that don’t, those that stick to the tried and trusted beige without experiencing the colourful option are in some respects doomed to live in a world infested by the dull and creatively obtuse.