Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
It is somehow easy to dismiss the creativity of people, the stroke of genius that inspires others, that captures the zeitgeist and in which something truly incredible can arise, a spectacle, theatre of the mind. It is easy to dismiss it because to some eyes it looks like fun, that the players are solely reaping the applause for having performed a song, written a poem, created a play in which political leaders quake.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Those of a certain age will remember fondly The Pretenders bursting onto the music scene in 1979 with The Kinks supremo Ray Davies’s song Stop You Sobbing, then quickly following up with many a fan’s favourite Kid and their most well-known song Brass In Pocket. New Wave music at its best!
It was a glorious time to buy music, audiences had another female fronted Rock band, crowds were spoilt, Blondie and The Pretenders recording equally classic Pop songs; the people who went to see the shows were not just spoilt, they were there at the start of a new dawn.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Many would have seen The Rails, the undeniably cool Kami Thompson and James Walbourne, two years ago supporting the legendary Richard Thompson, they would have been impressed with the duo and their folky close harmonies that wouldn’t have been out of place in Kami’s father’s old band Fairport Convention. Arguably all would have left any of the gigs on that particular tour buying their intriguing, almost haunting E.P. release Australia.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Iconic perhaps doesn’t do Suzi Quatro justice, the word somehow refuses to roll off the tongue properly, it gets caught up in the mesh of images, in the crossfire of youthful explosion of 70s teenage dreams and admiration of the first woman of Rock, through to the status she truly deserves today.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
When you’ve never experienced a phenomenon it can be quite easy to scoff, to take a look at the moment from outside the pull of the dedicated fan and believe that no matter what you would be immune to sultry tones of the supposed magic which casts its eye over all who linger too long in the mercurial light.
The phenomenon you shy away from, is a perhaps the one that catches you out the most, you ignore it arguably at your own cost and whilst we embrace many a facet, many a band, artist or individual, some we lose sight of, we openly mock or just plain forget.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Ruth Parratt, Jack Sanders, Molly Deegan, Gavin Duffy, Rebecca Ozer, Pete Smith.
Finding out you are pregnant when it is the last thing on your mind, the final piece of the puzzle to life’s ever random circumstance which you had no plans for, is one of those moments in which the world can come crashing down or can lift you higher than you have ever been, Heaven and Hell are moved and made to seem as if the process was flawless, that children are born into this world pure, Immaculate.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Clare Grogan of Altered Images at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. October 2017. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Anyone who found themselves down in the then recently reopened and lively atmosphere of Eric’s on Matthew Street during 2012 would have hoped to had Clare Grogan and Altered Images on their minds, on their music to do list of bands from the 80s that they may have missed out on seeing live.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: James Atherton, Taj Atwal, Sally Bankes, Gemma Dobson, Samantha Robinson, David Walker.
Jealousy can tear friendships apart, it is a aspect of life that is seen through every social class, every feature of society in all its rich forms and its often desperate situation, jealousy rips at the very seams of the fabric that binds and nobody outside of Shakespeare arguably understood that more when writing about two young girls from Bradford and the power of sex than Andrea Dunbar.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
It is not just people that have a history, a story worth remembering, it is the very fabric of a place, a building and even the structure of art and the thoughts that go into it as well.
When history on all fronts collide it can make for an impressive evening of memory, a kaleidoscope of colour and fantasy rolled together; it is a history which dominates and fights like a boxer scrapping for the money in which to build a better life for, a harassed mother to be finding the strength to deliver a child into a world. For between these two states of human emotion comes life and one that can only be tempered by the sound of an artist calling through time and being appreciated with the full extent of both Heaven and Earth.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Photograph by Ian D. Hall
Tomorrow will follow today, to think otherwise is to take the only thing that matters in the world to many people from them, the belief of hope. Hope is the reason why so many of us get up in the morning, hope is the point of talking in vain to the nice girl who smiles, to listen to that song, to relish an evening out when everything about the modern world screams to stay inside; it is in hope that the live performance by an artist is one that will captivate you and keep you alive inside.