The sleeping Welsh town once rose like Olympus
in stature, the air that came off the Irish Sea
pure and blessed
and whilst the salt combination of a world’s ocean
rocked against its brick stone valley girthed
and holiday hiding hole for many a child
from the docks of Liverpool
and the might of the Midlands’ industry,
Olympus now lays dormant.
Or so it appears as you scratch the surface of the giant,
its splendour not sleeping,
just neglected by those whose tastes have changed
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Riptide GP2 is a water based racing game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4. Vector Unit was founded in December 2007 by Ralf Knoesel and Matt Small with a team comprising of just four members including themselves. Vector Unit’s focus is clearly on racing games as their first game released in July 2010 in the form of Hydro Thunder Hurricane which was followed by Riptide GP in 2011, Shine Runner and Beach Buggy Blitz in 2012, Riptide GP2 releasing initially in 2013 on iOS and Android platforms and Beach Buggy Racing in 2014 with Beach Buggy Racing and Riptide GP2 making their home console debuts on PS4 in June 2015.
Rosanne Cash, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. July 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The sound of a thousand silent pins dropping onto the patterned listed carpet could not have distracted the audience inside the Philharmonic Hall as the sight of time playing one of the cards in which memories are made and connections through history are enhanced.
Even the added sizzle of excitement that was seized upon by the elusive beast that Time runs with could not have wished for more as the Cash family legacy walked on stage inside the Philharmonic Hall and the time played tricks with loving affection on the audience.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Twenty-Four hours is a long time in which to go from one extreme to other in terms of music venues to perform in as a musician. In much the same way that someone who spent a month exploring the depths of life on the ocean floor somewhere in the middle of Atlantic Ocean and is suddenly given to chance to go up as high as possible in aircraft flying over the same site, the perspective is daunting and wonderfully demanding; yet it a challenge that is strived for and achieved because that is what it means to be Human.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is something very cool, something very loveable that sits within the framework of Crowning Sky and for a band that stood out for being the only one not coveting the moody and brooding on a hot July evening. This tangibility of heartening spirit, that welcoming approach that sat with the brilliance on offer by the other three sets of artists at Zanzibar was enough to raise a smile of simple creative enjoyment rather than the grin and gob-smacked generosity that shook the hands of the other acts.
The digital clock doesn’t quite have the effect
when displacing time
as the oaken panel Grandfather clock
with gears and old fashioned Victorian
ethics that should have died at the same time
as the grieving widow…
tick, tick, tick,
all is silent elsewhere but for the slow build
up of pressure and for the briefest possible moment
the world continues spinning through the void
but then at twelve twenty and thirteen seconds
somewhere in the darkness a sun breathes
its last and goes out with the switch a light
The Sneaky Nixons at Zanzibar, Liverpool. July 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The sound of a lonely trumpet, mournful, respect inducing and being blown as if the last vestige of light was being snuffed out across the city and the rampaging hoards under the command of the Four Horsemen were clambering at the old walls, played out with a kind of skittish solemnity; for not everything in life sounds as though it is seen. Not every great explosion and brutally exquisite note is heralded by beauty in some eyes and yet as the dark shadows collected in the late July evening and the party revellers bounced to a incoherent beat somewhere in the distance, The Sneaky Nixons stormed the troops and the true beat of nature was there to be felt and admired in droves.
Shamanarchy’s Rowan Reid, Zanzibar, Liverpool. July 205. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
It is impossible to not love a woman with attitude, not the type of posturing of the insane found in either gender that has them starting fights and the tears before bedtime attitude but the type of the strong, down to earth, assured in their viewpoint and not scared to give a collected audience a show that sticks long in the memory. A performance made even more impressive because of how that woman has bought the male members of the band up to the same bruising and musically intellectual point that she has attained, that is true attitude.
Sophie Anderson at the Zanzibar in Liverpool. July 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There was a time when Sophie Anderson might have thought that the day had gone well to be called up at the last minute and asked if she was free to do a set at The Lomax. However, so much can happen in two and a half years, so much can take place and what was considered bountiful and awe-inspiring can undergo such transformation that the musical butterfly with a voice somewhere between Grace Slick and Marcella Detroit has become even more needed as a guide vocal, a motivation to young women everywhere and the voice; the voice has become rapturous.
The Everyman Theatre on Hope Street is home to many ideas, many moments of inspiration and suggestions that in its short period of time since its re-emergence from the ground upwards, it has become one of Liverpool’s brightest stars. It is fitting then to meet one of the city’s finest artists, who is fluent in poetry, music and scriptwriting in equal and abundant measure, inside the halls that have the feel of the hallowed seeping out of them.