Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

To see an artist enjoy themselves, to witness the little escaping of glee and cheer from their mouths after every song, is perhaps one of the great thrills in life. It certainly makes for an entertaining evening and enhances the overall pleasure of a listening to a set of songs delivered with beautiful precision and cheer.

Kate Rusby has become a sort of tradition when it comes to performing in Liverpool, the woman who alongside great heroes of the genre; encapsulates everything that is good to found in the art of Folk music. Like the publishing of the festive issue of the Radio Times, the advance notice of the details of the Christmas Day Doctor Who special or the sound of shops heaving with people scurrying  around in search of a present that doesn’t exist, Kate Rusby heralds the start of the festive period.

For over 20 years the very proud Yorkshire singer has been taking her style of Folk music to the appreciative crowds at for the December of 2013, The Philharmonic Hall audience were treated to show that may have appeared simply charming on the surface but was underscored by months of planning and an appearance of the fabled brass section. This was just a little more than a chance for traditional songs of the period to make an entrance in amongst the quiet Yorkshire humour, it was the sense of the unmistakable talent to go one step further.

With two sets to fill, Kate Rusby and her band, the exceptional Damien O’ Kane, Aaron Jones, Julian Sutton and the poised confidence of a man in full command of his instrument Mr. Duncan Lyall, gave the audience a natural gift of music as an early Christmas present. Opening with the track Cranbrook, Kate Rusby and her male entourage took the audience through the delights of Folk, the imagery of music only performed, with one exception, in the very small area and their public houses of Yorkshire. The one exception being a version of Cornish Wassailing, which was so beautifully envisaged, that any child of that Celtic domain in the audience may have spent the next couple of songs with a tear or two in their eye.

With songs such as Home, The Holly and The Ivy, the brilliant Poor Horse, The Lark, the cautionary tale of the Wishing Wife, the exceptional Holmfirth Anthem and Sweet Bells all being performed with jubilant assuredness, there was never a reason for anybody in the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall to do anything but clap along wholeheartedly, smile from beginning to end and enjoy without measure the voice of a Yorkshire legend.

Ian D. Hall