Splintered Ukes at Hope Fest 2015. Photograph by Lis Garrett. Photograph used with kind permission by Lis Garrett.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The humble ukulele has enjoyed such a renaissance of late that the New Romantic era, the generation of Punks and the Progressive era must be finding themselves suddenly believing there might be an avenue of opportunity to explore, to take their old hits and musings down off the dusty shelf and turn the world into their domain once more with the aid of the trusty musical instrument.
In the Splintered Ukes, such thoughts are beyond the negativity that one proud fame may have troubled the musical experiences of the past and where the dust had laid silently decomposing in others, for them the Ukulele offered only creative enjoyment and the chance to take certain songs and give them a fresh keenness to be heard in a different light.
The eight-strong team crowded onto the stage at District and made sure that all to follow had a bar of appreciation that was set high to try and attain and beat.
Songs from such luminaries as Fleetwood Mac, The Smiths, The Rolling Stones and Portishead were given respectful but off beat dynamic attention and a certain quality of fresh appeal; it was a set that installed into the late afternoon attendees at District the right to enjoy themselves and to make sure that this year’s Hope Fest was one in which music was King and the charity event across the city was a huge and unmitigated success.
Songs such as Brown Sugar, Glory Box, George Ezra’s Budapest, The Smith’s Charming Man and the Blue Bells’ Young At Heart all rose the spirits of the crowd inside the venue and if the thought of being beaten into submission by the wonderfully long weekend of music and those that force the pouring of more people into the cycle of debt and crisis crossed the mind, then the enjoyment of hearing older classics being given a substantial lift was more than enough to set the pulses racing.
A great set enjoyed by all, the ukulele is forever redeemed in the eyes of the 21st Century.
Ian D. Hall