Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is a quiet, but still audible to those listening with trepidation and the silent thanks of steely fortitude in such matters, countdown before Jessie Solange kicks off the Wednesday showcase with a smile on her face and a quick word for the audience who made their way to the Paul McCartney Auditorium.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There are bands that you watch live and you just instinctively know they need, musically demand, to be on a bigger stage to get the full blown effect that their music requires. It is a sign of good things to come that if the sound can grab you by whatever means necessary, whether by brain, the soul or any other bodily function that drives the musical desire, then it requires to be heard in a setting that really gets deep down and dirty with appreciation, such is surely the fate that awaits Pontipridd’s Peasant’s King.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
There has always been a mutual respect and understanding between the two great areas of the North that straddle famous rivers and who look out far beyond the shores of the counties they reside in. Liverpool and Gateshead, and the Scottish equivalent in Glasgow, have much in common, much to celebrate, not just in politics, in its sporting prowess and its resilient people, but in the way they both have been left to rot by successive governments since the turn of the 20th Century but who are both shining examples of sticking two fingers up to the Westminster Empire and being their own unique city.
Satin Beige, LIPA, Liverpool. April 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Relaxed, composed and only the barest hint of the immensity that resides in her fingers showing as they strain at the leash wanting to fly with the same feeling of majestic endeavour that she showed ahead of supporting Tommy Scott’s acoustic evening at Leaf in March, Satin Beige looks as if she doesn’t just want to give a performance to remember, she wants to show exactly why she is so highly regarded and so admired.
Kitty Staunton of Novacrow, LIPA, Liverpool, 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
If every song needs a hook in which to guide it to the listener’s emotions then does it follow that every live performance needs something other than the music to really make it memorable? It either depends on how the sound is appreciated, a folk band for example certainly don’t need the extra polish attached their gig, neither does a solo performer serenading with almost perfect ease, and yet in some quarters, what is already rather enjoyable, even tremendous in some places has that little something extra with the visual memento mori attached.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Raw, un-mitigating power, the abilty to drive a musical note so far down the ear canal that it pops out the other side as if hurtling round the Higgs Boson Hadron Collider, power but with controlled aggression, not to see where the origins of the Universe may lay, not to marvel at the prospect of where the place of birth is in the cosmic soup but to introduce a the great sound at the disposal of The 69 Watts.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
There is a natural tendency to see a band perform in one setting and immediately wonder how they would sound somewhere else, how they would grab the attention in a smaller venue, one on a larger, perhaps more acoustically challenging and accustomed to the rigours that come the way of a young band making inroads in the career. That natural tendency is born out wanting to see the band do well and hearing songs that made your heart flutter initially, but also the dreadful spectre of betting against yourself that surely without reasonable doubt, they cannot be as good as the first initial contact made with them.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5/10
Helena Johnson is going to be huge one day, all the signs are there and the performance, especially when placed in with the big band ensemble is a spectacle to behold and admire.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
When audiences first heard about this gig, the pairing of Paul Simon with Sting was one that may have struck many as not being an obvious combination and having seen the gig, for many it arguably still doesn’t – they’re an odd couple of monumentally iconic proportions but together they delivered a very special night indeed.
The stage was jam packed with musicians of the very highest quality – the session guys worked in shifts – some with Paul, some with Sting, including the legendary drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and some with both, which gave the whole night a real feeling of unity but what nobody could have expected was three gigs for the price of one.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Time is both cruel and unusual, as well being the well thought of great healer. It asks so much of us and in many ways offers so little in return. To be able to find time to watch all the great bands that come your way, that visit your nearest venue is an almost an impossible ask; to follow round every possible staging post one of the great young acts that the city has nurtured over the last few years is sadly unworkable in the modern age, to do deprives your attention from others, just as deserving, just as enjoyable, and yet when Kevin Critchley comes on stage, Time does its best to hold back the constant ticking.