Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
To book end a month in Liverpool, to go from the searing heat that infused the Liverpool Loves weekend down at the Pier Head to closing what in some terms may seem like a small residency in the oncoming drizzle of the final chapter that Summer could muster at the Kazimier Garden, is something that very few performers could hope to achieve or even see in the sprawling streets of Liverpool’s musical heritage.
For Roxanne de Bastion though, the high regard she has built up as a performer by the Liverpool music faithful is one that is worth celebrating and trying your damndest to get to, no matter the venue, no matter the weather.
The one crucial difference between Roxanne de Bastion’s appearance at the Pier Head and the one that saw the heavens decide that water effects were a suitable addition to the Liverpool day was in the form of Stuart Irwin on bass. This superb supplement to the set gave an extra meaning to the music and whilst nothing can ever take away from what Ms. Bastion brings to the charm and sense of fun that lives between the chords, Mr Irwin brought a sense of opening up the hidden meaning, of finding a small key for a box that sits in the copious and intriguing trunk and to one then all becomes clear.
Listening to Roxanne de Bastion is one of life’s pleasures that should never be taken lightly, a voice that is reminiscent of the great Nancy Wilson with its full depth of character and super vision, she and Mr. Irwin played the songs Some Kind of Creature, Butterfly, Seeing You, Wasteland, My Shield and the fantastic Red & White Blood Cells without any sense of being drowned out by the prospect of a tropical storm crashing down from high and with acoustic greatness being thrust into the crowd.
Some performers naturally exude a smile from an audience when they are playing, it is only to be expected that perhaps the biggest smile on the audience’s faces for the Liverpool Acoustic Garden show as they sat comfortably under the canopy or in the wooden carriage was for Roxanne de Bastion. A woman of tremendous character and who enraptures an audience completely!
Ian D. Hall