Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It seems at times there are more living legends still placing one foot infront of the other and getting, mostly rightful, plaudits for their continuing appeal and depth of character. There well as may be a sign on a student’s door proclaiming that after all the defining era’s of the Earth’s evolution that the latest one may as well be named, the era of legends.

Legendary though is really the only way to describe someone such as Spencer Davis. The cool man of the British foray into the world of pop revolution in the 1960s, an accolade perhaps shared with the likes of Peter Green and America’s Roy Orbison, a man who helped Steve Winwood become the man he is, who captured a mood that rested somewhere between sombre joyfulness and back side kicking integrity. There really was only one Spencer Davis, there could only ever be one Spencer Davis and for a delighted audience inside the Empire Theatre, the man who so rarely leaves his now home in America stood before them and produced a set, which may have been short, but nonetheless was like a shot of adrenaline to the soul.

Four songs that sat so well between The Fortunes and Chip Hawkes that it was possible to close the eyes and dream of magic having been produced in getting Spencer Davis across the body of water that separates the two nations with a common tongue, if not always a common goal. However, had the eyes been shut, had they even twitched and stuttered too long in the blink, they would have missed something so welcome, so near divine that it might never be seen in again in the life time of all in the building. Like Haley’s Comet, this is now a once in a life time memory in which to squeeze every drop of emotion out of.

The four songs, Keep On Running, I’m A Man, Someone Help Me and So Glad We Made It couldn’t have been greeted with more sincerity and feeling from the audience if they had been told that Kenny Dalglish was coming out of retirement to lead the Liverpool front-line.

Momentous days happen, sometimes by surprise, for many these are the very reasons in which music is unlike anything else that can be experienced, sometimes you just have know that something good is about to happen.

Ian D. Hall