Kaiser Chiefs, Echo Arena, Liverpool. January 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Not so much as offering a riot or an explosion of epic proportions, what first nights really do after all but The Kaiser Chiefs kicked off their latest tour with some style, much swagger and ultimately thunderous applause from an Echo Arena crowd that had seemingly waited far too long for the band to return to Liverpool.
Hayseed Dixie at the o2 Academy in Liverpool. January 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Coming to Liverpool on the back of the immensely popular new album, Hair Down To My Grass, there is only one way to describe the banjo loving, Tennessee loyal awe-inspiring sight of Hayseed Dixie and that’s committed, unpretentious brilliance.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Review 8.5/10
That rare showing of charisma, you either have it or you don’t. If you don’t you can get by being truthful, unabashed or even by smiling, all of these bring out the sunshine in a performer. To have charisma though and to have it so far ingrained into every single member of the band that the sweat pouring off them can be cloned and sold off as new aftershave or perfume, is to have magnetism and every single pair of eyes looking at you as if you were some sort of Demi-God taking a break, well that’s enough to know that the formula is exciting, raw and beautifully wild.
Blame The Wolves, Zanzibar, Liverpool. January 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It must be the cry of half the population of the Black Country, one that they rejoice in and the other side decries with shouts of foul play before coming back with their own retort as their football scarves flutter wildly with expectation and grim determination. Yet somewhere in the unfairly called outback of Cheshire, Blame The Wolves has a different, more life affirming and tuneful approach mantra and as they appeared on stage at Zanzibar, the Saturday damp air mingling with revellers and drinkers realising just how long and arguably how bitter a personality January has, Blame The Wolves smashed down the door, made a movement towards the fireplace and made an appreciative audience howl with glee.
Mike Flaherty at Zanzibar, Liverpool. January 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
The word interesting is one of the befuddled words that has changed its meaning over the years as each generation turns the English language inside out and makes it its own. Interesting and sick are two that seem to have almost swapped places as if in a Mark Twain historical novel and yet to those who see the words as they originally intended, interesting is a thing of beauty that is motivating and worthy of note and that certainly applies to the presence and appealing magnitude that resides in the soul of Mike Flaherty.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
“Prepare for Hell”, as the tour posters exclaimed, and whilst there was no sign of Dante anywhere in the vicinity, the heat, the taste of brimstone hanging in the air as if two Devils had had a 10 round fight over who would have the best seat in the house and the surely never imagined sight of one of the great Metal bands of their time, Slipknot, performing live on stage in the heart of Liverpool.
Korn at the Liverpool Echo Arena. January 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
A stray and uncharted asteroid ripping into the moon with the precision of the 8 ball being placed head on into the side pocket would, not makes as much noise as the cacophony of sound that greeted Korn as the Prepare For Hell tour wound its way to the Liverpool’s Echo Arena.
It was almost as if the fans of the band and of the genre had been starved of having the strength of quality of the music that Korn were able, and willing to provide.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
It doesn’t happen all that often, the East Lancs Road somehow manages to siphon off the genre and caress with guarded jealousy and a shake of the bitter fist as Manchester tends to get the big metal acts and Liverpool doesn’t even see that much of the flourish remains. It doesn’t happen all that often, despite there being an underground movement that has taken shape and led by some very impressive young Liverpool acts hell bent of taking the mountain out with animosity but January 2015 will go down on the night when three of the best Metal acts that America has to offer outside of the big four came to the city by the Mersey and blew the Echo Arena away.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Nils Lofgren has placed his guitar on the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall stage before and yet as the chill in the January air was making the very air being exhaled from Liverpool public’s mouths feel as though it was shattering onto the pavements in a tiny fragmented pieces, never has watching one of the most scintillating guitarists to ever come out of America, filled the heart with as much heat and joyous warmth.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
January, the month when all things hide, when put up the cold toes closer to the roaring fire and flicking through the holiday brochures whilst wearing more wool than a confused and overheating sheep wandering around in the Tasmanian wilderness, it takes something special to really get the heart thumping hard to even think of leaving the safety of the home in the cruel, harsh month.