Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5/10

The Liverpool Philharmonic Hall resonates to the sound of ghosts, the aural phantoms of pleasure who have been retained and thankfully allowed to stay filtering and flitting through the expanse of work that has been undertaken in the prestigious venue, all of them forever it seems to harness the energy of every new act that comes along and plays to the gallery and the crowd.

Yet for all the phantoms of voices that have thrilled the bowels and the hearts of the edifice on Hope Street, none arguably have quite stood as a support, or indeed perhaps as a joint headline act and given as excellent a performance as Andrew Roachford and his splendid band did as the 2015 shuffles its way with menace towards its final and glittering final breaths.

Whilst Mr Roachford has been seen to be in great voice as part of Mike and the Mechanics in recent years and indeed giving a boost to the gracious stage shows in and around the Liverpool with Genesis guitarist Mike Rutherford, it is with his own music, his own dynamic and compelling soulful tunes that really allow a venue to shake loose and the audience to swing with ease and full appreciation.

The nature of the evening was not lost on the crowd, this was no support act to one of Liverpool’s finest ever bands, this was a tour de force, a heaving of musical scale that grabbed the lapels of the shirt, pulled the listener up close and planted a joyous kiss on the forehead; this was a set in which music came alive in a band and which rocked the soul and had the phantoms of the past gleefully absorbing the vibrancy and active moves displayed by Andrew Roachford.

Songs such as The Doctor, Real Again, The Way I Feel, This Generation, the effervescent Cuddly Toy and the towering beauty of Bill Wither’s Ain’t No Sunshine all harnessed the two way energy between musician and audience and the electric feeling of accomplished beauty lay intact on the stage.

The evening, whilst belonging to the Liverpool crowd who had made their way to the Philharmonic Hall, also in part belonged with a feeling of regal majesty to Roachford, a group of knights who made the experience come alive with vigour and rocking elegance; truly outstanding.

Ian D. Hall