Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 91/2/10
Space at St. Luke’s Church, Liverpool Calling. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
High above the city a banner unfurled as it was being towed along by a plane. It was un-missable, which was the point, to anybody who craned their neck and strained their eyesight to a limit not recommended by Opticians. In keeping with the tone of the weekend’s events and as hundreds of thousands packed any available square inch of pavement to them, the banner simply read, “There Are Giants In Town”. That there was but possibly not the ones the pilot was thinking of as he dragged the banner through the summer sky.
These giants were Space and they were in their home town to raise as much noise possible inside St. Luke’s for the culmination of a superb days’ worth of music for the second ever Liverpool Calling Festival.Even with Space having found themselves reduced to a foursome, the much valued Ryan Clark taking a break from the band, the energy that gushed like vapour rapidly escaping freely from an air vent hit every stone, every brick that stands inside the heart of St. Luke’s and cheerfully found its way onto the streets of Liverpool. Giants were certainly in town.
For the debonair Tommy Scott, coolness personified Franny Griffiths, the prowling gesturing behemoth of Phil Hartley and the angry sensational ease of drummer Alan Jones, even if one of the giants stalking the roads of Liverpool had popped their head over the side of St. Luke’s during the gig, its empty eye’s training down on the audience, hardly anyone would have noticed. Such was the gripped attention of all inside the venue, the large scale dog accompanying the puppet girl could have scampered up to anyone smiling at the lyrics and cracking sound of tracks such as Begin Again, the sublime She’s In Love With The Boy In A Bodybag, Attack of the Mutant 50ft Kebab, the cracking Avenging Angels, Mister Psycho, Me and You Versus The World, A Liddle Biddy Help From Elvis, Neighbourhood and Female of the Species and dragged them off thinking they were a juicy human tasting bone and nobody would have batted an eyelid.
For some bands the encore does come across as a slight chore, even if planned, they appear to show scant regard when it comes to giving the audience one last thrill for the evening. With Space, despite the fact that they hadn’t rehearsed anything else, they seemed only too eager to play a couple of more songs; even if meant repeating two of the group’s most called for tracks.
Nobody minded as Female of the Species was played once more to an ecstatic crowd and when Neighbourhood played out something strange, something intoxicating and tangible hit the Liverpool air. With St. Luke’s, the iconic bombed Out Church, constantly under threat to be shelved and sold off, the place of memory and rememberance to a city’s dead at the hands of the Nazi Party doctrine, seemed to shudder and beam with pride as Tommy Scott let the line drift innocently into the night air, “They want to knock us down because they think we’re scum” and immediately the line hung expectantly as if awaiting permission to knock on a developer’s door and scream that certain buildings, certain places of recollection, are off limits. Perhaps no better song could have been song all night with that in mind and for what St. Luke’s means to a city who never forgets those who die at the hands of oppression and the malicious.
For the second year running the organisers of Liverpool Calling played every card just right, the music was sensational and the Bombed Out Church rocked in cheer to the abundance of talent on show, some venues need the vestige of space to make them worthy, some just need one of Liverpool’s finest ever bands to fulfil the same need.
Ian D. Hall