Tag Archives: Liverpool

Western Sands, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

It may always come as a slight surprise that some people are quite willing to part with hard earned cash for a gig and then proceed to miss at least half of it. Of course there is work; that cannot be helped, it is part and parcel of being in the kind of society that we are. Then there may be child care issues to consider. However that surely still leaves a fair percentage, a sizeable chunk of a gig going audience who only ever turn up for the main act and perhaps don’t even want to take the chance on something new. For those that made their way to the o2 Academy in Liverpool in good time to see Western Sands and The Dead Daisies, there was a feeling of overwhelming nodding approval in what they saw.

Western Sands, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool. full post

(438 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

Nebraska, Film Review. F.A.C.T Cinema, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Stacy Keach, Bob Odenkirk, Mary Louise Wilson, Missy Doty, Angela McEwan, Rance Howard, Devin Ratray, Roger Stuckwisch, Tim Driscoll, Glendora Stitt, Elizabeth Moore, Kevin Kunkel, Dennis McCoig, Ronald Vosta, John Reynolds, Jeffrey Yosten, Neal Freudenburg, Eula Freudenburg, Ray Stevens, Lois Nemec, Francisco Mendez, Jose Munoz, Catherine Rae Schutz, Terry Lotrous, Dennis McCave.

If the latter part of 2013 has anything to show for it then the quality of films that have come out in the last six months have been exemplary. None so less as the Alexander Payne film Nebraska.

Nebraska, Film Review. F.A.C.T Cinema, Liverpool. full post

(616 words, estimated 2:28 mins reading time)

The Hitchhikers Guide To Fazakerley, Theatre Review. Royal Court, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Lynne Francis, Lindzi Germain, Jack Rigby, Angela Simms, Michael Starke, Charlotte Dalton, Stephanie Miles, Emily Trebicki.

Every science fiction story needs a hero, a man willing to put his life on the line in order to save the world and by doing so redeem his soul, a man who handles himself with courage, moral fortitude, bravery in the face of oppression…and a Tardis inspired wheelie Bin.  It’s the festive season but not as we know it.

The Hitchhikers Guide To Fazakerley, Theatre Review. Royal Court, Liverpool. full post

(440 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

Go West, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

You can really never have too much of watching a great set of musicians perform on stage, a furtive reminisce of singing along to a set of records as teenager and knowing that surrounding you are 2,000 people in the same building doing exactly the same thing and the realisation as you try to take in all their faces that each one of them is almost deliriously happy.

As part of the very cool package which included The Christians and and Hue and Cry, Go West’s Richard Drummie and Peter Cox thrilled an audience completely with their set and gave those thoughts of being a teenager in the 1980s a helping hand with their playful recollections.

Go West, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

(466 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

Hue And Cry, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

For anybody who was at Eric’s in Liverpool when Hue and Cry, the brothers Greg and Pat Kane, in May 2012 when the music they performed was so serene, so brimming with the bounty of many years as being one of the great bands to emerge from the late 80s that if the world had ended somehow in a hail of cosmic dust, nobody pretty much would have minded. Now to witness their set at the Philharmonic Hall would have just about having any audience member packing their bags and asking their own personal deity which way they should be heading.

Hue And Cry, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

(468 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

The Christians, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

It may have been a shorter set than any of their home grown fans may have liked but there could be no doubting the honesty, the respect and love from band to audience and given back a hundred times over.  There was obvious mutual sheer enjoyment which accompanied the half dozen songs performed by The Christians as they opened up a terrific night of 80s/90s musical nostalgia at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

The Christians, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

(429 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Time Passing

Striding through the woods at night,

sounds surrounding me, slithers of light.

I stop and kneel,

the cold damp earth spongy underfoot.

I look up to the beaming moon

shrouded by an eerie mist.

Night continues on its path to dawn.

 

Distant voices remind me I am lost,

shadows extending blackness.

I cry out. A primeval urge to dig and climb,

no hiding place to protect my weary bones.

 

Loneliness is devouring me, encircling my being.

Senses super tuned.

Damp air.

Cold clammy skin.

Time Passing full post

(175 words, estimated 42 secs reading time)

Saving Mr. Banks, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Annie Buckley, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, B.J. Novak, Bradley Whitford, Ruth Wilson, Melanie Paxson, Victoria Summer, Kathy Baker, Rachel Griffiths, Dendrie Taylor, Kimberly D’Armond.

Saving Mr. Banks is a film that exemplifies the thought that somewhere between novel and film the life of the author is lost in the complexity of producing a cinema hit. The life of the writer, whose soul is poured into the painful birth of producing something that in a lot of cases is a cathartic way of exorcising a childhood memory, is overlooked. Cinema audiences, perhaps comforted in many cases by the end result, neglect the person who gave them the character in the first place.

Saving Mr. Banks, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool. full post

(518 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Alice In Wonderland, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Jenny Runacre, Reaya Sealey, Ashleigh Pacham, Holly Rivers, Mairi Phillips.

There have been so many theories and speculated conjectures surrounding the many possible veiled references to Alice In Wonderland that it enough to make the poor girl’s head spin. Never mind falling down the rabbit hole, occasionally being shoved with the full force of a 1970s Welsh Rugby Union side with no sight anywhere of a very wide cat and it’s cheesy grin leaping forward to break your fall is more akin to anyone who takes on the utterly charming but completely surreal book by Lewis Carroll.

Alice In Wonderland, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(360 words, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)

The Bad Shepherds, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There is a moment when you are listening to The Bad Shepherds, whether it is on a C.D. or more importantly in the realms of the live performance that you realise just how important the music they have taken hold of actually is. What is more significant, is what they have moulded out of precious material and given new form to, the music remains, the lyrics don’t really change at all and yet somehow they have either given fresh impetuous to the song at hand or given a completely new radical meaning to the track.

The Bad Shepherds, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool. full post

(529 words, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)