Category Archives: Live

Alexandra Jayne, Gig Review. Liverpool Acoustic Festival 2015. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Alexandra Jayne at the Unity Theatre in March 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

The celestial heavens opened above the U.K. and the thought of the majesty and awe of space was offered to all below, the dance between Sun and the Moon a peek at what made our ancestors shudder with fascination and perhaps fear but in the skies above a 21^st Century Earth. As eclipses go, certainly over Liverpool, it wasn’t the most auspicious of moments, but that did not stop one star shining brighter and with greater meaning attached at this year’s Liverpool Acoustic Festival at the Unity Theatre.

Alexandra Jayne, Gig Review. Liverpool Acoustic Festival 2015. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(518 words, 1 image, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Natalie McCool, Gig Review. Liverpool Acoustic Festival 2015, Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Natalie McCool at the Unity Theatre. March 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

From supporting Go West at the Floral Pavilion to the unchartered territory of Russia, from producing one of the singles of the year so far to being thought of as an icon in music, it has been an upward trajectory that that has seen Natalie McCool take on an even greater, and well deserved importance, in the annals of North West music. In the spirit of such things, to have Natalie McCool perform at this year’s Liverpool Acoustic Festival is one to take great thanks in.

Natalie McCool, Gig Review. Liverpool Acoustic Festival 2015, Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(467 words, 1 image, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

Shannen Bamford, Gig Review. Liverpool Acoustic Festival 2015. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Shannen Bamford, Unity Theatre, Liverpool. 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

One of the great finds on the Liverpool acoustic circuit in recent years is arguably Shannen Bamford. A voice that resonates like an angel tempting the music lover with a shot of adrenaline and comforting words when all around is filled with sorrow and pockets of despair.

Even though Ms. Bamford has other commitments that keep her disappointingly away from the venues on a full time basis, both for her and for the legion of fans that she has built up in Liverpool, when she comes on stage the realisation of just what she brings to the acoustic table is enough to stir the music passion once more.

Shannen Bamford, Gig Review. Liverpool Acoustic Festival 2015. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(391 words, 1 image, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

The Selecter, Gig Review. East Village Arts Centre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5/10

For three years on the spin The Selecter have made their way to Liverpool and given such dynamic performances that they are impossible to ignore, especially on a night when so much was going on with the confines of the city’s bustling streets.

The Selecter are one of the seminal bands of their genre and perhaps arguably one of the most iconic and much loved, mainly due to their front woman, Pauline Black, being such a positive role model, on all who ever meet her.

The Selecter, Gig Review. East Village Arts Centre, Liverpool. full post

(658 words, estimated 2:38 mins reading time)

The Tuts, Gig Review. East Village Arts Centre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Nobody ever wants to go to a gig and be bored, what would be the point? You may as well stay at home, put on the television and be entertained by the mindless pulp and trash that passes for entertainment at times. For in that world of the beige and insipid lays the regular heartbeat, the dull sound of the grandfather clock, polished within an inch of its life and signaling with wooden glee your every ever closing steps your date with the inevitable, beige being your watchword.

The Tuts, Gig Review. East Village Arts Centre, Liverpool. full post

(454 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Dr. John And The Nite Trippers, Gig Review. Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Dr. John and the Nite Trippers. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. March 2015. Picture kindly reproduced by Adrian Wharton.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Let the good times roll…and eventually they did, it just seemed to take a while for the legendary Dr. John and the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall audience to find each other.

There is never a doubt that Dr. John is one of the most stylish men to be welcomed to the stage at the Philharmonic Hall, he also has the overpowering ability and back catalogue to back it up, in that, legendary is perhaps too shallow a description in which to place before the all rounder and man of many parts.

Dr. John And The Nite Trippers, Gig Review. Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

(319 words, 1 image, estimated 1:17 mins reading time)

Edgar Jones, Gig Review. Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

There are spaces in life which are just too big to be filled by anybody or anything else. Whilst they are not around the hole gets bigger, it is more and more noticeable and the bleak feeling they leave in their absence turns to raging at the moon and the cursing the stars.

For Edgar Jones to have been away from the Liverpool stage is akin to feeling adrift on a sea with only a single plank to sit upon as the sea crashes around your mid-rift, it is unfathomable why the predicament should have happened and the world is somehow poorer for it having taken place.

Edgar Jones, Gig Review. Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. Liverpool. full post

(376 words, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

Tommy Scott, Gig Review. Leaf, Liverpool.

Tommy Scott performing at Leaf, Liverpool. March 2015. Photograph reproduced with kind permission by Adran Wharton.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The flickering light supplied by the one reading lamp placed by an antique looking but initially comfortable chair, an audience waiting patiently, the sharp suit complementing the darkness that was settling in as Winter’s icy grip was beginning to thaw, two highly praised musicians waiting by his side, a small inflatable bird perched in his eye line. This was all that was needed to further enhance the ambience and feel of a wonderful 19^th Century night of warning, musings and acoustically charged music was for Tommy Scott to deliver his evening at Leaf on Bold Street in the stylised tones of Edgar Allen Poe and a mysterious knocking on the lift at the back from a talkative raven.

Tommy Scott, Gig Review. Leaf, Liverpool. full post

(497 words, 1 image, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

Satin Beige, Gig Review. Leaf, Liverpool.

Satin Beige performing at Leaf in Liverpool. March 2015. Photograph reproduced with kind permission by Adrian Wharton.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

As Satin Beige finishes her support slot to Tommy Scott at Leaf, it’s possible to sit back and reflect upon a raw and flowering special talent that has just awoken many lost memories with her wonderful cello playing; exotic but with more than a hint of the moody regal nature that emanates from every pore and fibre of this young performer.

Satin Beige, Gig Review. Leaf, Liverpool. full post

(425 words, 1 image, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Rumours Of Fleetwood Mac, Gig Review. Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. (2015).

Rumours Of Fleetwood Mac at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, March 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

It cannot be easy being bracketed as cover’s band, especially when you have the ringing endorsement of one of the group ring loud and clear across the venue in which you are performing in and every note sound as delicious, as astoundingly melancholic and brutally sharp as anything the main band in question laid down in their fifty year career. This perhaps is arguably compounded when the band are on tour themselves within a few months and that same band is held with so much deep affection that it crushes the heart and causes shortness of breath. For Rumours of Fleetwood Mac though, they have that endorsement for a reason, they truly capture the soul, the very essence of what Fleetwood Mac represents.

Rumours Of Fleetwood Mac, Gig Review. Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. (2015). full post

(526 words, 1 image, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)