Category Archives: Live

The Good Host, Gig Review. Studio 2, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There are people under a certain age that wouldn’t be aware of the lyrical prowess of those that lived on the musical hall stage. Those seemingly immortal beings who could somehow rattle out a story with an accompanying piano and a small cigarette wistfully burning away inside its porcelain holder, seem at times, to be Gods who belong to a different age. In the modern day there is no need for the smoke, for the exuberant glint of porcelain and the outlandish lyric once favoured by the likes of Noel Coward…

The Good Host, Gig Review. Studio 2, Liverpool. full post

(354 words, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

Matthew McGurty, Gig Review. Studio 2, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Winter is such a cruel and heartless master. If you are not careful, it becomes far too easy to sit in the front room of the house and be force fed the type of insipid, characterless and unadventurous music that television dictates. If the winter is a long and hard one, it might end up having a Government warning attached to it that simply states, “Staying in can seriously undermine your natural ability to check out exciting new music.” It might be the only Government warning worth worrying about.

Matthew McGurty, Gig Review. Studio 2, Liverpool. full post

(379 words, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Deacon Blue, Gig Review. Echo Arena, Liverpool. (2014).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Deacon Blue performing at the Echo Arena, December 2014. Photograph courtesy of David Munn Photography.

From here on the days start to get longer, the country may just be staring into abyss that is the cold and potentially snow bound days of winter but at least there is light starting to creep back into the 24 hour clock as the balance of Time tips slowly back in favour of being able to be out of the house. However, the shortest day of the year affords the party to have a long hurrah, to slip comfortably into the clothes that make a person feel better and to enjoy one of the most popular acts that comes to Liverpool and its Echo Arena, the phenomenal Deacon Blue.

Deacon Blue, Gig Review. Echo Arena, Liverpool. (2014). full post

(573 words, 2 images, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

Zervas And Pepper, Gig Review. Echo Arena, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

To experience something new is one of the great pleasures of life. It gets the brain going, it tingles the imagination and sets a blazing path under your feet to try and find out more. Thankfully in the 21^st Century, you can make a beeline for the internet when the evening’s performance is over; visit a band’s home page and then several really handy and badly taken concert footage reels which litter the web should the desire take you, all in the name of just finding out that little bit more about the fresh new sound your ears have been exposed to.

Zervas And Pepper, Gig Review. Echo Arena, Liverpool. full post

(459 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

The Wonder Stuff (Acoustic), Gig Review. 02 Academy, Birmingham.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Time is a tremendous healer; it can also be a jailer. It can tie you down and deliver a quick, unexpected slap and shock the system to the point where unless you are willing to change the way you present yourself every now and then, or at least the fundamental part that everyone sees on a daily basis, then Time is quick to stagnate and be repulsed.

The Wonder Stuff (Acoustic), Gig Review. 02 Academy, Birmingham. full post

(588 words, estimated 2:21 mins reading time)

Mark Morriss, Gig Review. 02 Academy Birmingham.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It is the absurdity and cruelty of modern life that with even the best intentions you can miss a great artist’s work and not hear about it till months after the event. It somehow underlines the age, places a big huge marker against the 21^st Century when looking back at the annals of history that a talented musician can go vastly unnoticed and yet somehow, somewhere someone is laughing with a maniacal grin and wringing their hands as if having purchased a tonne of glee and were now beaming at the thought that television had finally killed the true artist.

Mark Morriss, Gig Review. 02 Academy Birmingham. full post

(500 words, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

Pete Wylie, Gig Review. Zanzibar, Liverpool. (2014)

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Great songs are the only currency that counts. It really is that simple.

So, with a successful Pledge campaign in his back pocket and a brand new guitarist and consigliore standing stage left, Pete Wylie returned to The Zanzibar to wrap up his busiest year in a decade, before turning attention to the imminent recording of a new album.

Pete Wylie, Gig Review. Zanzibar, Liverpool. (2014) full post

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

Brit Floyd, Gig Review. Echo Arena, Liverpool. (2014).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It is a problem that can flummox the most ardent or even the most casual of music lovers in Liverpool, that nowhere in the U.K., with perhaps the possible exception of London with its network of collected villages all rolled up into a Westminster empiric bag, can offer so much music in one night to its populace that audiences can be split through loyalty, nostalgia and shared love.

Brit Floyd, Gig Review. Echo Arena, Liverpool. (2014). full post

(478 words, estimated 1:55 mins reading time)

The Who, Gig Review. Echo Arena, Liverpool. December 2014.

The Who, Echo Arena, Liverpool. December 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

It’s a wonder at times that the River Mersey doesn’t grumble at the thought of another band making its way to the Echo Arena and producing a cacophony of sound that seeps through every pore of the audience’s being. The dynamic ebb and flow, the underlying fury that drives the water down to the Liverpool-Manchester Canal and hits the rocky shoreline of Ireland with a brutal but much loved smack takes second place to the sheer resonance produced when rock legends such as Peter Gabriel, Status Quo and The Who come to Liverpool within a week of each other.

The Who, Gig Review. Echo Arena, Liverpool. December 2014. full post

(626 words, 1 image, estimated 2:30 mins reading time)

Sharon Van Etten, Gig Review. The Library Institute, Birmingham.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Every time Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten releases an album, it’s an opportunity for the listener to check out her state of mind. An intimate setting like The Library, was the perfect platform for her selection of unguarded, confessional narratives, in a set which drew heavily from her most recent release Are We There’.

Sharon Van Etten, Gig Review. The Library Institute, Birmingham. full post

(366 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)