Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
With a little help from your friends, you cannot ask for more in life except having the drive to be the very best version of yourself possible, both of these states of mind are there to remind you that you have a responsibility to perform and take in the very immense situations that you may find yourself within, that the song, the smile and the swagger, are there because the world demands beauty in the face of possible oppression.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
There are always holy grails in which the music lover finds themselves hoping to one day hear, elevated from the possible and tantalising, once exotic but dubiously sourced bootleg, and for the fans of The Who, the night at the Fillmore East in the aftermath of one of the most horrendous acts of murder in American History, is one that has long been wanted and relished of all of the great British band’s captured performances.
First, they came for the homeless
on Britain’s streets,
because that’s what they do, pick
at the fringes and the easy targets, the vulnerable
and the uncomfortable on the eye,
and you did nothing,
then they come, excited
by the work already done, the first small ticked box
for the disabled and reduce them down
to figures of ridicule and suspicion,
do they really need to be seen,
salivating now, the painted smiles
of ministers as you tore yourselves apart
to say nothing,
I stubbed my toe,
not well enough,
on entering the room,
I noticed it was still smoking.
Ian D. Hall 2018
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
You can’t argue with the music, the sentiment and the ability, you can however feel that an element of what went before is missing, consigned perhaps to not being part of the moment or the future, and when that happens it calls into question the reasons and objections you may have in your own mind to how a band or artist will continue on in that vein.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Naomi Harris, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Malin Ackerman, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello, Marley Shelton, P.J. Byrne, Demetrius Grosse, Jack Quaid, Breanne Hill, Matt Gerald, Will Yun Lee, Bruce Blackshear, Jason Liles.
The arcade game to which this film takes its name and part of its premise, has all but been lost to the depths of time, a classic of the back street shops that held deep fascination for those who were brought up in an era when gaming was social, your attention divided between the now retro classic, the music and infectious beat and doing your best in front of a crowded room and the urging of friends behind your shoulder to beat the score set by local and undefeated champion of the local arcade.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
A Clockwork Orange, Everyman Theatre, Liverpool. Photograph used with kind permission by Marc Brenner and the Everyman Theatre.
Cast: George Caple, Nadia Anim, Richard Bremmer, Nathan McMullen, Phil Rayner, Zelina Rebeiro, Keddy Sutton, Liam Tobin.
Musician: Peter Mitchell.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Hell is upbeat and the Devil plays a mean tune for the masses, whether you are in the gallery or in the seventh circle enjoying the restricted view but foaming at the mouth at all the associated demons that tend to your every whim and sell you over-priced memories, then Hell is the place where the saxophone plays dirty and the Blues wink happily at the thought of your captured soul.
Same view, different perspective,
constant grass growing under my feet
but now enriched by worms, squelching
through my toes, lazing by the ladybirds
gorging on the unseen insects
and microscopic larva, unchanged,
I may have found new lenses for my eyes,
however, I still witness the same horror
every night and see the devastation
you ring out every day, and still the grass grows,
comfortably, under my feet, tickling
the backs of my knees.
Ian D. Hall 2018
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
A new beginning is not always enough to see the scars disappear from view, however, it makes them easier to bear, the load seemingly shared between the consciousness and the heart, the memories fade, they become hopefully less aggressive, they lose their bite and the snarl dies down to a whimper, but in the soul, the fury gains momentum, that new beginning is purely the symphony ready to build up the tension, to strike up the band and let the haze clear; it is all that is needed to show that Love Lives On.