Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
To experience something new is one of the great pleasures of life. It gets the brain going, it tingles the imagination and sets a blazing path under your feet to try and find out more. Thankfully in the 21st Century, you can make a beeline for the internet when the evening’s performance is over; visit a band’s home page and then several really handy and badly taken concert footage reels which litter the web should the desire take you, all in the name of just finding out that little bit more about the fresh new sound your ears have been exposed to.
The Echo Arena of late has had giants of Rock and pop galore pound on its walls, and in the spirit within the venue’s history, adventure is to be had for the brave and the bold. For support act to Deacon Blue on the shortest night of the year, the worst that could have happened was for the delirious audience, a crowd that really parties hard when Deacon Blue come calling to Liverpool, would have been to be dismissed out of hand as everybody would start to count down the minutes till the first strains of Bethlehem Begins hit the stage
To come across Zervas and Pepper is to hold that spirit of adventure in your hands and gaze nervously upon it with a dose of expectant wonder. To hold your own as support to one of the great acts to come out of Scotland is one thing but have a Liverpool audience openly enjoy you, that’s quite another and for half an hour, the unusual sight of a fairly still and wrapped audience was evident and it was a gratifying sight to see as tracks such as Buffalo Crow, Starting Over, the excellent Sure Fire Bet and Living In A Small Town were not only applauded but given a huge amount of respect.
It was a respect that worked both ways as the members of Zervas and Pepper seemed to hold the Echo audience, quite rightly, in high reverence also, this was after all the last night of the tour and to be thrown into the cauldron which is one big Christmas party would have been a daunting prospect with that deference to the occasion.
To see something new that excites you, that sends the slight thrill of electricity racing through your body and has you checking your wallet for the last stray tenner before Christmas is to know that you have enjoyed what you have seen, for this surely will not be the last time that crowds in the music capital of the U.K. get to hear the great sounds of Zervas and Pepper.
Ian D. Hall