Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Shy Billy at Studio 2, Liverpool. September 2017.

The change of name can sometimes reveal a different side to the artist, an altered state of vision and rhetoric down the microphone; the shift can cause the stage to shrug its shoulders and the audience to slowly drift off into the realms of memory and the once proudly proclaimed emblems on T-shirts, such is the trepidation of a name change, the question always asked, does it revolutionise the art or does it detract from it.

For Shy Billy, arguably the name does not matter, the past is gone, and whilst it was pure and aggressively cool, the future as Shy Billy is just as exciting as when they were known as Lying Bstrds, and as they took to the stage in support of Elijah James and the Nightmares as they celebrated their debut E.P. launch at Studio 2.

Friday nights were made for such line ups, never mind the so called pull of the over-priced pint and hardly heard constant thump in some quarters around the city as the chase for the believed fashionable drink beyond the scope of hearing music seems to take to precedence. However no matter the thrill of the chase, what is more important that the thrill of watching Henry Pulp and the band is just as raucous and as powerful as it was under a different name.

Shy Billy are anything but reserved, they certainly don’t display the traits of the introverted or the stage inhibited; instead they possess energy and the outgoing personality in which the Friday night was made for. The quality of the performance was matched by the ever growing feeling in the audience that the night was one was one to savour, especially on the back of The Mono LPs gave their all before them and despite being down to two members for the night.

With songs such as Shoelaces, Karmic Resolvtion, Instant Gratification, Waiting Gracefully and Lost My Mind, That All making the set blister and burn with fury and gregarious fun, what exactly is in a name, Lying Bstrds by any other name can still sound so sweet and sociable as well as lively.

Ian D. Hall