Three Minute Hero. Threshold 2015, Liverpool. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Stuart Todd may go by the name of Three Minute Hero but this conscious driven musician is no flash in the pan, no three minute wonder when it comes to delivering songs with social bite and society angst. Every city, every market place in every village, town centre or urban conurbation deserves someone like Three Minute Hero, someone to whom the maverick town crier can be held up as an example to, not delivering news to the masses which has been scripted, shaped and fawned over by ministers and their collected yes men, but the ideas and truth of what we have in place.

Liverpool has such men and women all around, it is what makes the city arguably not just the heart of culture in the country but surely the soul, the town crier to the U.K. soul, one that urges to others to remember not to let the Westminster Village have its own way.

Three Minute Hero took the stage at Constellations and for 20 odd minutes made it a home from home, all that was needed as part of his set of this year’s Threshold was to install some double glazing to keep the rising tide of Mersey wind down and the afternoon would have been set up perfectly.

Social truth, the songs of the town crier earnestly shaking his fist in democratic fashion as he rallies those for whom society sometimes glosses over, this is what musicians and song writers such as Three Minute Hero and the likes of Alun Parry and Lizzie Nunnery do so well at achieving.

With songs such as In This Generation, Piece of the Action, the outstanding 173 and Dance Like A Star all booming across the stage at Constellations, this was the town crier in full flight and it is was a wonder to behold. No sign of flash exuberance, no milling around on stage, just the cajoling nature of a self assured messenger asking the assembled to take notice of the message. It was a message that was understood and saluted in earnest.

Ian D. Hall