Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Winter is such a cruel and heartless master. If you are not careful, it becomes far too easy to sit in the front room of the house and be force fed the type of insipid, characterless and unadventurous music that television dictates. If the winter is a long and hard one, it might end up having a Government warning attached to it that simply states, “Staying in can seriously undermine your natural ability to check out exciting new music.” It might be the only Government warning worth worrying about.
Inside Studio 2 on Parr Street, the warnings would be worth as much as a Minister’s pledge to stamp down on Cronyism, for the cold was soon banished like Hamlet to the wilds across the North Sea as the usurper to the throne sat comfortably sits back and drinks the best mead for a while.
Warming up the abundant crowd ahead of the main act of the night, the much admired Dawn Landes, Matthew McGurty looked down from the stage and paused, briefly, and then proceeded to shake the winter blues out all of concerned with a relaxed but commanding, authorative voice.
Having traversed across the dividing line between Merseyside and Cheshire that the Runcorn Bridge provides, the night was given the immediate lift that the last two weeks of near boredom had done its best to install into Liverpool’s music lovers.
Matthew McGurty stood like a colossus, almost dwarfing his guitar, and allowed his gentle, but highly cool, voice to ensnare those present into giving themselves completely over to the night ahead. Listening to songs such as Rabbit Hole, Alien, Humble Heart, the superb Sweet Little Saviour and the copious like heroics of Growing Hair, were like being told that whilst Winter would probably hold the country in a vice like grip for a few weeks and that Spring might not rear its beautiful head for while, sometimes what peeks out from underneath the January frost and winter hardship is worth protecting and keeping safe. In Matthew McGurty’s wonderful voice, the mean season found a foe that would hold it at bay.
A tremendous start to 2015 and Matthew McGurty was the reason for it.
Ian D. Hall