Their school uniforms flattered
their conversation, overheard
as it was
in coffee shop in Waterloo,
over tea and a snack before
heading back to school, tucked
back in blouse, the giggle of fifteen
year youth as they congratulated
themselves on skiving off a lesson
for an hour, and the slurp
of how they shall get fat,
should they do this all year.
I rolled my eyes, I could not
sanction or approve of such time wasting,
the skive, one lesson, all for a buttered scone
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Ruth Parratt, Jack Sanders, Molly Deegan, Gavin Duffy, Rebecca Ozer, Pete Smith.
Finding out you are pregnant when it is the last thing on your mind, the final piece of the puzzle to life’s ever random circumstance which you had no plans for, is one of those moments in which the world can come crashing down or can lift you higher than you have ever been, Heaven and Hell are moved and made to seem as if the process was flawless, that children are born into this world pure, Immaculate.
It felt…
nice,
to hear that I didn’t do
something wrong, that my words
committed to the screen
and bound by feverous desire
to get the story out of my head,
were good, better than good,
they were enjoyable;
it felt nice to not be
looked upon with despair.
Ian D. Hall 2017
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Midge Ure at the Philharmonic Hall, October 2017. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
It is arguably impossible to think of the 1980s, musically and socially, without the work of Midge Ure eventually coming up in the conversation. The sense of being all things to all music lovers never far from the mind when looking on the decade with either fond nostalgia or the deep seated anger when the pictures of one of the greatest humanitarian disasters unfolded in Africa during 1984.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Garry Christian at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. October 201Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Charm, style, grace on stage and all the attributes of a gentleman; it is perhaps hard to see The Christians in any other light, especially in front of a home town crowd, and with the bonus of celebrating 30 years of history placed before an attentive, passionate, 80’s driven nostalgic audience. However all those years have produced one of the most interesting and self effacing front of stage men and with a voice that feels like silk and hammers home the message with all the power of Thor’s hammer at his disposal; it is no wonder that The Christians remain one of the most respected bands of their time.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Clare Grogan of Altered Images at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. October 2017. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Anyone who found themselves down in the then recently reopened and lively atmosphere of Eric’s on Matthew Street during 2012 would have hoped to had Clare Grogan and Altered Images on their minds, on their music to do list of bands from the 80s that they may have missed out on seeing live.
It was with the once gleaming look,
a smile with a glint attached
and a face that radiated honesty,
that I thanked anyone
who had liked,
loved,
fancied,
drooled over to the point where
spittle ran out of the corner of their mouths
and they had the look of basting
a turkey for Christmas etched
across their sly grin chops,
kissed, French kissed,
snogged like there was tomorrow
and in some cases like there was no
day after that,
whispered down the ear such words
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: James Atherton, Taj Atwal, Sally Bankes, Gemma Dobson, Samantha Robinson, David Walker.
Jealousy can tear friendships apart, it is a aspect of life that is seen through every social class, every feature of society in all its rich forms and its often desperate situation, jealousy rips at the very seams of the fabric that binds and nobody outside of Shakespeare arguably understood that more when writing about two young girls from Bradford and the power of sex than Andrea Dunbar.
Again, I enter your domain
and feel the queasiness
of my symptoms take a tumble,
for your eye is uninterested
and your stethoscope brutal,
a cold metal harbour
for your five minute lesson
in your ignorance
and impatience, watching
the clock tick over, counting down
the sick, marking them off,
crossing them off;
the sigh of the same story once told
now the conjured message of disguised help
me please, modern
life the incorrigible scourge
of modern living.
I look into your eyes,
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There is no such thing as the sane approach when dealing with the subjects of Anarchy And Love, sometimes you just have ride it out and see where the action takes you, or if you are fortunate you get to join in willingly, hold your head high and smile as the beauty inside both rages.
Both feelings state their case of destruction, both suggest that to follow the noise and conflagration of others is going to end with more than a few stories to tell; to lose your head and your heart at least once in life is to show that you have lived.