Rise And Shine, Theatre Review. The Casa, Liverpool. Liverpool Fringe Festival.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Maggi Green.

Controlled by the clock, everything to be done by a certain time or else the feelings of guilt and imperfection come steamrolling through, the sense of not having achieved even the most simplest of tasks during the time the clock wakes you and allows you the brief respite of dreams; this is the greatest form of punishment that humanity has bestowed upon itself, the complexity of time reduced down to moments in which life is either behind or ahead of self doubt and the insecurity of being seen as feckless and inadequate.

Rise And Shine, Theatre Review. The Casa, Liverpool. Liverpool Fringe Festival. full post

(415 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

Municipal Waste, Slime And Punishment. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Artistic freedom is essential in all walks of life, not only for the artist who has the vision of something different in mind when told they must plough a field, but the everyday person, the ones who also see the extraordinary in even the most mundane of tasks or the bitter resentment of working for a conglomerate that doesn’t care. Freedom is fundamental, freedom is a right that should not be seen as one that can be bargained for or relinquished in exchange for control by fiscal bribery; for in doing so you open yourself up to the realms of Slime and Punishment.

Municipal Waste, Slime And Punishment. Album Review. full post

(448 words, 1 image, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

Ripper Street, Closed Casket. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Adam Rothenberg, MyAnna Buring, Killian Scott, Matthew Lewis, Benjamin O’Mahony, Jonas Armstrong, Joseph Mawle, Mimmi Morton, Anna Burnett, Kahl Murphy, Kye Murphy, Ian Pirie.

There is always the feeling of definitive and upturned world when it is the detective who finds themselves on the run, the officer who has upheld the law in the best way possible for the town and times he lives in, suddenly thrust into the world of dark, of the ignoble and the fear of being hunted. All those times they have chased down a criminal and won, now in the heat of moral decay, counting for nothing as other officers with grudges and jealousy of success running hot through their veins, close in on their quarry.

Ripper Street, Closed Casket. Television Review. full post

(473 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Drifting, Slowly Sinking.

 

Deluded misconceptions of what happiness can be.

This guiding light just blinds me, keeps me lost at sea.

We headed for the coastline hoped to reach the shore.

But gained no distance through resistance but my

persistence keeps me warm.

 

‘Its not what your lookin for,

that makes it difficult to find.

It’s not what your lookin for.

That keeps it on your mind.

 

Drifting with the current, heading who knows where

Incapable of anything, that shows how much we care.

Drifting, Slowly Sinking. full post

(143 words, estimated 34 secs reading time)

I Sometimes Have To Remember.

I sometimes have to remember

all that I have seen

and felt,

touched, experienced

and lost,

for sometimes it feels like a dream,

one that my imagination

has stirred and fired off without warning;

I sometimes have to remember

the hands I have shook,

for in the skin I have

I collect their memories also

and in the end their thoughts bleed

into mine,

an honour to have been part of it all,

but I have forgotten

most of all that ever

happened.

I Sometimes Have To Remember. full post

(90 words, estimated 22 secs reading time)

Blue Öyster Cult, Gig Review. Indigo At The 02, London. Stone Free Festival 2017.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Blue Öyster Cult at the Indigo, London, June 2017. Stone Free Festival 2017.

To have three major music concerts in London on the same day could have been either bad planning or the greatest thought since Woodstock, especially when the heat and potential to sweat ridiculously through the various band T-shirts and cloaked denim, the abundance of merchandise laying everybody’s arms down with expectation and joy all bundled up into one full experience; to have Guns and Roses and The Stone Roses play either side of the Westminster Capital and the legendary Blue Öyster Cult perform at the Indigo inside the O2 Arena, was perhaps, on reflection, a music marketing dream.

Blue Öyster Cult, Gig Review. Indigo At The 02, London. Stone Free Festival 2017. full post

(491 words, 1 image, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)

The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, Gig Review. Indigo At The 02, London, Stone Free Festival 2017.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown at Indigo, Stone Free Festival 2017.

To be in the presence of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown is to understand what showmanship is truly like, it is like a magic trick that you cannot see unravel or become clear until it has set you in the mood to watch closely at the quick hands and the sharp, intelligent wit; the magic trick is not one to dismiss as flim flam or as the idle workings of those out to fleece the punter of money. In The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, the magic is there to thrill you, to make you feel something different from the everyday or the run of the mill; this is Arthur Brown at his finest and long may he continue to be that erudite and sensational showman at the head of a three ringed, awesome, circus

The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, Gig Review. Indigo At The 02, London, Stone Free Festival 2017. full post

(473 words, 1 image, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Gun, Gig Review. Indigo At The 02, London. Stone Free Festival. (2017).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

In the words of the Beastie Boys, You gotta fight for your right to party, or on the hottest day of the year so far, you have got to take in as much as can and hope that the experience is worth writing home about, that your memories of the music is such as that it rings across the space between the audience and the band with grace and with the heart beating wildly and in tune.

Gun, Gig Review. Indigo At The 02, London. Stone Free Festival. (2017). full post

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

Doctor Who, The Eaters Of Light. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas, Michelle Gomez, Rebecca Benson, Daniel Kerr, Brian Vernel, Rohan Nedd, Ben Hunter, Sam Adewunmi, Billy Matthews, Lewis McGowan.

Even the brave can stumble in the face of the unknown, it is in our very nature to shrink back occasionally against the dark and the mysterious, the unspecified threat; it does not make you brave to be flippant against such threats, what makes you strong is facing it anyway; a lesson for life, face the future or die regretfully in a cave and never see the reward of the valiant effort.

Doctor Who, The Eaters Of Light. Television Review. full post

(521 words, estimated 2:05 mins reading time)

The Girl In Blue Denim.

We danced, you in blue

Denim and me,

uncomfortably  sporting a black

bow tie, sweating because you,

dear you, a girl in my dreams,

whose blonde bottled hair

once covered your breasts

as you undressed

before me, a smile

tight on your Stockport lips;

we danced six years later,

holding my hand,

till dawn

when with sadness

and empty feeling in my stomach,

I awoke and cried a lonely tear.

 

Ian D. Hall 2017

Permanent link to this post (77 words, estimated 18 secs reading time)