I can’t play out today,
there is no use knocking at my door
and asking if I am free
and then slyly suggesting I lend you my ball
for I know I won’t get it back
as it will be booted at some point
into a neighbours garden
and I will get the blame for it breaking the glass
of their greenhouse, the shards of that fallen
glass murdering several tomato plants and a prize
cucumber, green blood dripping from its
dying form, riga mortis ensured.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Manipulation is so rife in the modern world that at times it is almost impossible to see where it begins and where it finishes. Everybody it seems has a long, invisible string attached to them that they dare not step too far out of line lest it be yanked and tugged so hard that falling down, being made an example of, is the least of their problems. Control after all is the name of the game.
It was unlike
any conversation
I had under-
took with a
train guard before,
normally the
discourse was
limited to
the duty bound
and the sent-
iment of
tickets please
with gruffness
and dampening spirit
between stat-
ions and stares….
This though was illuminating and joyful,
as the young man known as Crispy Baghands
from Blackpool told me of his story
and how he had joined the post of sentry on parade
of Britain’s railways, Beeching’s great and terrible crime
Fleetwood Mac, The Hydro, Glasgow. June 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
It starts with a gentle rhythmic beat, slow, incandescent and the thought of explosive wrath and crazed delight far from its mind and ends in the white heat of thunder, the objective having been met, the satisfaction of thousands of souls having been determined and the noise of a thousand hearts having been caught fluttering in the wind, now forever filled with content and tranquil fulfilment. To have witnessed Fleetwood Mac, the classic and commercially erudite line-up of Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John McVie, Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood, perform anywhere on this particular tour, is arguably to have sensed that five decade old greatness.
I offer myself the look of self pity,
knowing full well I am the cause of my own disease,
that I am the one who pushes relentlessly
until beaten to a pulp and crying mercy upon my knees.
Well fuck you insolence,
you never were my favourite gravy train
and save me from my own compassionate sense
for if I should go out screaming, it’s because I’m still sane.
I am gripped in the acid hold of life
for deep in the middle of the four a.m. shadow
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Buildings retain their memories, or so the theory of some would have you believe, yet stretch the idea to a sporting venue or a music hall and somehow the presumption of ideas seeping into the walls and being held and aiding those following is not so daft.
Memory is after all what makes lyrics come alive, what makes a song tick with the resonance of a heartbeat and the story behind those combinations seem fruitful and soul affirming. For New York raised Suzanne Vega, memory is what makes her own stories come alive, that dip into a musician’s soul which captures elements of life and which gives meaning to others as they go through their own quiet path of life.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It’s not the first time that Liverpool has given musical shelter to Ben Montague in his short but very obviously interesting and successful career so far but it will arguably go down as the performance in which he was more relaxed and at ease with himself and full of self deprecating humour than any other. It was a sight and aural sensation in which those who made their way to the Philharmonic Hall early enough ahead of Suzanne Vega’s first visit to Liverpool in eight years took very much to their hearts.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
You can’t keep a good genre down for long. Like Progressive Rock which seemed to die a death in the late seventies, aside from a wonderful brief renaissance due to a certain band in the 1980s, Blues which collapsed under its own weight and almost near corpulent excess and the many predicted passing of Heavy Metal which like the late Christopher Lee in many of his outings as Dracula, comes back to enthuse a new generation with its addictive bite; so to have many impatient scribes long lamented over the lack of Ska in the last decade.
Upstairs at Eric’s
the best night’s sleep I ever had,
except that one night in the wilderness
where I slept alone and exhausted
for a while as I ran away from society
in order to find myself.
My Grandfather’s spare bed
at the top of the stairs, a set of rooms
he had not seen since the late seventies
as his baring and his weight meant
he slept downstairs till the day he died,
was by far the greatest bed of all.
The old Victorian room,
Elvis Costello at the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool. June 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
The standing ovation that lasted longer than any political leaders conference speech resonated past the doors and onto the surrounding pavements of Hope, Hardman and Leece Street and continued as Elvis Costello’s audience drained of strength but not of will and faith and heartened by resolution and revolution, made their way out of the Philharmonic Hall and began to reflect on what had transpired in the course of over two outstanding hours of music.