Dominic Dunn, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival, Pier Head, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

As the light began to fade and the sun was musing on its daily retirement from the sight of the people of Liverpool, one young man stood aloft on the stage and proceeded to show exactly why it is important to give the youth of the city the chance to show why they must never be taken for granted. Why they should not be decried as members of society and why at all costs they must be nurtured and given the hope and strength they need to do the jobs that we as their elders have perhaps mislaid our own purpose in fulfilling.

Dominic Dunn, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival, Pier Head, Liverpool. full post

(482 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

Gary Edward Jones, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival, Pier Head, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5/10

The Mersey Side area arguably produces so many talented song writers and musicians that there is a thought that what would British music be like without the enormous and hardy input from its shores; perhaps not desolate for the music that comes out of Edinburgh, Birmingham, the Canterbury set and all places in between stand out as being cool and diverse but Liverpool surely gives it its heart.

Gary Edward Jones, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival, Pier Head, Liverpool. full post

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

Roxanne de Bastion, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival, Pier Head, Liverpool.

Roxanne de Bastion at the Liverpool Loves Festival 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The sun was on its waning path across the River Mersey as Roxanne de Bastion took to the Dovedale Social Stage. The journey to the city’s Liverpool Loves Festival may have been a fraught and arduous one, but it was one that led to Ms. Bastion being greeted like an old friend and one in which the day would ultimately revel in her way of musical story-telling, the fire in the Folk and the wonderful way in which to turn one particular song associated with one genre into the epitome of another.

Roxanne de Bastion, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival, Pier Head, Liverpool. full post

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

Mersey Wylie, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival, Pier Head, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Living up to, and going beyond the pressure is what separates the good and the enjoyable from the legends of the future. It cannot after all be easy to live up to the shadows that a much admired name bestows, neither can it be taken in the same vein when you have already produced one of the musical performances of the year so far.

Mersey Wylie, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival, Pier Head, Liverpool. full post

(393 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Satin Beige, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival, Pier Head, Liverpool.

Satin Beige at the Liverpool Loves Festival. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

In such a short time Satin Beige has become one of those performers in Liverpool that you look up to with huge respect and the abiding knowledge that all is well in the world. For whilst this woman can sing and play cello with the passion reserved for the angry, the displaced and the brave, then the world will surely keep turning and heeding her words of youthful wisdom.

Satin Beige, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival, Pier Head, Liverpool. full post

(406 words, 1 image, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

Go Fiasco, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival. Pier Head, Liverpool.

Go Fiasco at the Liverpool Loves Festival 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The rule book keeps being ripped up with the earnest glee of David taking on Goliath at a game of conkers whilst using a brown painted cannon ball to press home the advantage. For Go Fiasco, every time they step on stage the boundless energy creeps up a notch, the measure of the musicianship becomes harder to ignore and the quickening pace of their wonderfully insistent songs gathers momentum and charm, for Go Fiasco, they are a living embodiment of why Liverpool has fallen very much in love with its young bands willing to pull out all the stops to make the 21^st Century a new music utopia.

Go Fiasco, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival. Pier Head, Liverpool. full post

(380 words, 1 image, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Ellenberg, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival, Pier Head, Liverpool.

Ellenberg at the Liverpool Loves Festival 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Into each day something new must arise, something to find that the pleasure of being alive is as valued as it is sought after. With the advent of a new three day festival in which the city has taken to its heart, it was only quite right that one of the very latest and indeed hottest bands should make an appearance at the Pier Head as part of Liverpool Loves.

Ellenberg, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival, Pier Head, Liverpool. full post

(412 words, 1 image, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

Jimmy And The Revolvers, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival, Pier Head, Liverpool.

Jimmy and the Revolvers, Liverpool Loves Festival 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Liverpool without some certain young bands does not bear thinking about, they are the groups that have not only captured the new wave of the city’s music appreciation, the 21^st Century in which The Beatles are still emulated and lauded but to whom also there is no personal attachment to the stories going beyond their grandparents and to whom the past now is a role model and not to be afraid of. They are also the bands that consistently give such great pleasure and the sweat of a new dawn each time they play.

Jimmy And The Revolvers, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival, Pier Head, Liverpool. full post

(453 words, 1 image, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Oranj Son, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival. Pier Head, Liverpool.

Oranj Son at the Pier Head in Liverpool. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Anybody who has been pushed up on to a stage first, to have the glare of the spotlight thrust with voyeuristic intent and the simmering of gentle persuasion guide them into opening a show, a talk or even just the pressure of buying the first round and knowing full well that people will drop out behind them, that others will order fancier drinks to make them look like the bigger cheese and the more generous, might get how nerve racking it is to open up as first act on arguably one of the biggest and certainly the most new weekends in the Liverpool year.

Oranj Son, Gig Review. Liverpool Loves Festival. Pier Head, Liverpool. full post

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

The Ways In Which Not To Talk.

We haven’t spoken for a while,

the telephone more like an instrument

of sarcasm in your hands and the last time

I heard from you was for the voice of introspection

to try and take control of a person’s thoughts

and life that wasn’t yours to observe upon;

for the running commentary via the modern way

of stripping flesh from bone but with the crocodile

concern and false eye tear that suited your demeanour

as you laid into me, despite me having been

your only friend for a while and one who never

The Ways In Which Not To Talk. full post

(405 words, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)