Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

January, the month when all things hide, when put up the cold toes closer to the roaring fire and flicking through the holiday brochures whilst wearing more wool than a confused and overheating sheep wandering around in the Tasmanian wilderness, it takes something special to really get the heart thumping hard to even think of leaving the safety of the home in the cruel, harsh month.

In Dawn Landes, the opportunity is truly too great, too wonderful to miss such a tremendous entertainer making the effort to come to town. There really isn’t much to remember in the first couple of weeks of the year, January is just too long a month in which to give it any redeeming features, so when the occasion calls and Dawn Landes’ is more than willing to play a set of music in which to revel amongst, then the only logical thing to do is put on some extra socks, turn off the fire at home and make sure that the box set of D.V.D.s are back on the shelf, for Dawn Landes does not beg an audience, they turn up because she is cool and musically excellent.

With a new E.P. out in which to further explore the range that this American songwriter is capable of, Dawn Landes took the Studio 2 audience on a long lingering walk through songs such as Oh Brother, Lullaby for Tony, Straight Lines and Bluebird.

As with any musician worthy of stepping foot within the Merseyside boundary, the temptation to pay homage to The Beatles as an entity takes root and whilst many stick to the well laid hits, it is with wonderful courage that sits in Dawn Landes’ heart that the crowd were treated to a rare hearing of the song Girl. The Beatles track may sit with the purists as being perhaps one of the easier songs to take on, but its hidden depths and vocal transparency are something that takes a brave soul to take on. It matters not what the end result was, for the foundation of decent respect was there and the smile as she regaled to all that it was only the second time she had played it was more than worth the small gentle pause eluded part way through. It was a touching and very enjoyable moment.

With the normal clamour of more being shouted strongly, Ms. Landes dutifully succumbed to playing a couple of tracks from her latest covers E.P. the soft tones of Dolly Parton’s Longer Than Always joining Bruce Springsteen’s Atlantic City in the encore, the night was one in which the New Year, artistically, was finally heralded in with a flourish.

A truly tremendous night at Studio 2 on Parr Street in which the bitter swell of a January evening could do nothing to dispel!

Ian D. Hall