Ste Neildsy performing in Bootle. July 2016. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Acoustic is what acoustic does; in the scheme of things, it might get lost in the clamour of the fast paced and often absurd world we find ourselves inhabiting. It might be passed by and only thought of as something you might find at a wedding or in the confines of a smaller sized venue, one in which is often passed by for the big brash experience, the pounding of the beat.

It sometimes doesn’t work, many a rock band for example fail at the reduced down and squeaked clean approach, the notes lost in translation without the heavy muscle backing them up, however for the likes of Ste Neildsy, acoustic is a blessing wrapped in the anarchy of life, a brutal sense of cool and discovery that doesn’t just whisper with fortitude and strength, it finds itself out muscling the heavy, shoving aside the sense of mass and with a polite outstretched hand, comforting those in need of salvation with honest and clear eyes and tremendous spirit.

The Johnsons’ Pavilion stage was one that built for such clear thought and even more concise music, the setting, the feeling of pastoral inside the sweat driven machine of a town felled by giants, squashed by indifference in the past and one still reeling under intense economic pressure that is decades old, the setting was perfect for Ste Neildsy, the still afternoon not hindered by the odd number 53 chugging its way to Liverpool or the ruined façade of a once great local employer, this was a time of thought and consideration, promise and delivery and as the songs Do What You Please, Johnny, I Could of Told You and Echo Echo rang out across the incredible sight of so many people in one area, that promise was kept and made real.

Bootle may be forgotten in the eyes of many, its days now spent in the isolation ward as people make their way to either Liverpool or up to Southport, however as Ste Neildsy, Round Sound Radio and the organisers of this musical feast showed with ease, build it, show people there is another way past the decay that Government forces on such towns and they will come out in their droves to support the music and art.

Watching Ste Neildsy is a pleasure, an acoustic dream that is made real and one to love.

Ian D. Hall