Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Wille and the Bandits at the Music Rooms in Liverpool. March 2018. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

The equinox may turn and gift us the power of more sunlight in which the refuge of the day we seek but it is still in the apparent darkness, the illuminated room and the hum of electricity in which we come alive and warm ourselves in the company of the like minded, the curious and the players, those who are there to capture our hearts and drive the whispers of beige away into the furthest reaches and corners of our minds.

It is in the music that the solace we seek comes good and inside the Philharmonic Hall Music Room, arguably no greater sense of thrilling passion entwined inside the soul of sanctuary could be sought that Wille and the Bandits as they took the audience down a road that was filled with vigour, with forceful and direct punch that was spread across the two 50 minute sets. Songs such as Scared of the Sun, Watch You Grow, Gotta Do Better, Bad News, Gypsy Woman, Chill Out and Virgin Eyes all glowing brighter than the lanterns placed on the cliff tops, luring the unsuspecting in to the sound of the tempting, passionate siren music.

It takes a stout heart at the best of times to cover the work of Peter Green, a genius, tortured perhaps, but nonetheless one of the greats of the entire British Blues genre, is almost impossible to truly capture the sense of drama that comes with his music, to harness the energy in the early Fleetwood Mac songs and yet sometimes it takes genius to emulate genius, it takes absolute strength of character to place the trust of the audience to take them into the very heart of lion’s mouth and come out the other side more exhilarated than they could ever imagine.

In Wille and the Bandits reading of Black Magic Woman, the reputation of both Peter Green and the band were obviously treated with respect and enhanced by the end of the pounding track and one that was matched all evening by the intensity created by three sons of Cornwall; an independence streak, a fire in the soul and the precision of beauty wrapped up in one of the finest gigs likely to be heard in the city this year.

A tremendous evening of music, the spirit of the River Tamar, of the symbolic wreckers of old, plundering the Merseyside skyline but instead of leaving destruction and the broken wooden bones of ships, splintered, burned without a trace of evidence remaining, departing the shores with their own treasure left behind, a chest of Cornish gold and silver in the shape of music that will surely now see them become one of Britain’s much loved bands.

Ian D. Hall