Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

As the light began to fade and the sun was musing on its daily retirement from the sight of the people of Liverpool, one young man stood aloft on the stage and proceeded to show exactly why it is important to give the youth of the city the chance to show why they must never be taken for granted. Why they should not be decried as members of society and why at all costs they must be nurtured and given the hope and strength they need to do the jobs that we as their elders have perhaps mislaid our own purpose in fulfilling.

For Kirkdale’s Dominic Dunn, opening up for the Wonderstuff’s Miles Hunt and Erica Nockalls at the Rodewold Suite in 2013 might seem like a million years ago already but for the fans he made on that night and those that have joined in since, it will always be the night in which a young man laid down a new truth in the musical heart of the city, that the young deserve their time, that they deserve to be given the room to sit at the table and discuss where the city is going wrong in their eyes and where it has gone right since.

The Liverpool Loves Festival is certainly one of those areas it has gone right in and the joy in the eyes of Dominic Dunn as he took to the stage alongside the respected backing vocalist Muzz was a sheer delight to behold.

This set though sparkled for a different reason; it was about change, about the prospect of the future and what it would mean to Mr. Dunn personally. This was the time for a while that some songs might be heard, a new revolution is underway in the heart of the young man barely a good free kick away from the City Centre in Kirkdale and it showed as after playing songs such as Away, La Vie Est Belle, Back To You/Rest and a cover of David Zowie’s House Every Weekend, he performed with untold glee his new single Bury Your Head.

It is in this single that the revolution begins and the delights of having watched this young man for the last three years takes on extra meaning as it shows that progression even in the young is something they aspire to.

It is that progression that reflects perfectly the idea behind the Liverpool Loves Festival. For Liverpool should love its young performers, they should sit up and take notice of those who in a decade’s time will be bringing in the crowds to the city to hear them perform and to whom the moniker of Liverpool artist will be firmly attached to.

For Dominic Dunn, the new breed that Liverpool should love, this was a day to savour.

Ian D. Hall