Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Emily Bevan, Chipo Chung, Angela Clerkin, Jane Guernier, Joseph May, Martin Turner.
Houses have a symbolism all of their own and they also carry the weight of expectation with them. A home should be the place where a person feels safest of all, where once the door is locked and the lights go out, nothing real or imagined should be able to disturb the peace.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
It is the open secrets that blind the ignorant, that leave the song unheard for fear of encroaching upon something new and untested and yet those that with even half a heart of interest initially, never to fail to find the whole picture, the entire song played with passion, a joy and a source of bliss to find wonder within.
It’s either this
or one of those embarrassing long messages
that gets thrown out to the world and might generate
a nod,
a look of bemusement,
a brief sigh
or even a single thumbs up,
proud and erect,
blue but well meaning,
blue but on its own;
it’s either this or worse.
It’s either this
or dark thoughts turn
on myself, they bite and snarl
and they infect, oh they infect
and turn poisonous pus towards
a final goal and I turn
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
It is the type of bill in which any self respecting lover of Rock might have to believe there was a possibility that Heaven might actually exist but it was to be found at the entrance to the motorways that surround Birmingham and be the spiritual home of the Rock and Metal extravaganza for the U.K. If the thought of Whitesnake and Def Leppard wasn’t enough to start salivating over then the opening act on the night, the exceptional Black Star Riders was surely enough to have the thought of a great Rock night out, arguably the last great one in the Birmingham area before Christmas, explode like the contents of the finest bottle of Balvenie onto the taste buds.
In the week that Liverpool was bestowed the title of City of Music, in a quiet Sunday afternoon corner in Parr Street’s Studio 2, the music was all that mattered.
Once a month Liverpool’s once Lord Mayor and hard working councillor and Consort, Gary Millar and Steve Macfarlane host the type of show that would be hard pressed to find anywhere else in the country, the type of homely appreciation of music that brings a Sunday to a natural end and filled with voices that are beyond the expectation of delivery. It is an afternoon where the day is given a sense of togetherness, where that appreciation can be set free under the piano commands of Billy Hoi and the vocal strength and haunting timbre of Mr. Steve Macfarlane and guests.
It is the parasite
I fear
that gives you such a rust for life,
that yellow complexion
under the hollow, shell like eyes,
your youthful frame in which was adored
Goddess like,
Helen of Troy fought over breasts,
the sweet beautiful sparkle
in brown eye shadow hint
and ruby lips,
now plunged into darkness,
the lights removed
and those lips, once
so beautiful to think of kissing,
now dead, spore driven and infectious from
your rust for life
of giving in,
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
It is entirely possible to believe that the structure that holds the Genting Arena together had only just stopped quaking from the previous visit of Metallica, that the combined forces of Black Star Riders, Whitesnake and now Sheffield’s finest Rock act Def Leppard were about to dislodge the settled dust and explode it down to its constituent atoms, that Metallica, for all their glory, were just a warm up act a few years back up the line for what was about to explode in the centre of the Midlands.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
As the Genting Arena, the latest name for the building passes in British music history as the old N.E.C., the stomping ground for nights in which the upbeat Blues and the pomp and ceremony associated with reverential Rock, the heavy guitar and the glorious pounding smile of satisfaction of sweat dripping down from the forehead, was plunged into darkness, a traditional meaty track came over the speakers and filled the hall with heart thumping gravitas and expectation.
They sat round the café table, the taste of bacon
catching on the rind and the steam of tea closing in
as if a London smog had suddenly descended
upon the fixtures, fittings and discarded
silver spoons laced with Dudley refinement;
they sat, slightly fidgeting, adults now, not children,
not children that were disgracefully made
to sit in a Salisbury Station and open presents
carried a few hundred miles on the back
of a broken dream,
adults now
but still
my boys.
The five breakfasts ordered,
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
All that was missing as the purity of Scottish voice and the sense of purpose that only two harps and a glockenspiel can bring to the abundant, almost feast like musical table, was the feeling of the Music Room at the Philharmonic Hall being transposed to the Scottish Highlands. It gives the feeling of a cold storm of rampant snow being trampled underfoot by majestic reindeer hoof and well stitched made shoe leather and shiny boot and the slight taste of acridity from the log fire burning within a castle wall with the same swell of passion as the three women who make up the fantastic band Shine.