Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

In Robert Vincent, Liverpool has a giant of such lyrical repose, of such melancholic absolution, that he towers in virtue each time he steps out on to a stage, physically and musically. In his support to Paul Carrack, a man who also understands undeniably the truth that a song can bring to a person’s heart, Robert Vincent took the crowd on a journey, a sad one perhaps he may have joked, but one in which the legitimacy of melancholic praise and beauty was unconditional and pure.

The Philharmonic Hall’s audience, especially those that have had the unquestionable pleasure of seeing and hearing Mr. Vincent before in many of the cities establishments, were visibly wrapped up in the emotions of what was laid before them, the catch all appeal of lyrics that were stunningly heartfelt and the gentleness of a guitar reaching out across the void that exists between the stage and rows of full house seats.

Cool, calm and collected, a simple measure of the man armed with great songs, a new album on the horizon and the smile that could disarm the most black-hearted of cynics in their track, Robert Vincent played a set that contained some old beauties, a track from the forthcoming album and one particular song that raises the hair on the back of the neck and puts the stamp of existence down upon the table as if laying the Ace of Spades down with force in which to take the cash pot home.

Tracks such as November, Lady, the sentimentally cool Blue and the dashing dynamic of Demons, a track that transcends the musical chord and is surely to be seen as poetic and sensitive, were all played with a smile and thought, of not just entertaining a home town crowd but giving them something very tangible to think of. The lyrics to the songs striding out as if they had their own presence of mind to change even just one person’s perception of how life should be viewed.

Robert Vincent never disappoints, live he is a colossus, a man to whom the stage is not a place in which to shrink into, the background filled with paraphernalia or the unrequited, it is a space in which to explore and set the songs free to roam.

A set of generous feeling, Robert Vincent once more proves he is a giant of Liverpool music.

Ian D. Hall