Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

There are times in life when you find yourself kneeling on the steps that lead to another human being’s alter and understanding why you are praying for the type of intervention that only a symbol of creation can bring to your troubled soul; in that moment of revelation you become a follower of the bright light that has been exposed, your breath quickens and your mind is laid bare of all that you thought you recognised and appreciated.

A Communion delivered by Little Steven And The Disciples Of Soul with the down to Earth but seemingly on a different plain of artistic delivery, surrounded by what some might see as the crowded stage, but for those touched by the sight before them, a congregation of the gathering beside a master with a touch of showman and minister weaved together to form something extraordinary, this was a representation of what it means to be intimate and bonded at the same time.

There was a different kind of buzz, an anticipation that was a combination of the wild and the serene, a tranquil storm welling up inside the minds of those that surrounded the pulpit, a reaction that many would have felt when Steven van Zandt stood alongside other members of the E-Street Band and Bruce Springsteen when they performed on British shores. For the uninitiated, the unbaptised in this musical ceremony the buzz would have been alluring, an instant craving to see how the flock would react; one that was not to be disappointed, indeed elated, as the evening at the Liverpool Academy tore through the rafters and the rule book.

Across songs such as Camouflage of Righteousness, the wonderful Party Mambo!, Education, Gravity, Suddenly You, I Am A Patriot, Superfly Terraplane, Bitter Fruit and the exceptional renditions of Little Girl So Fine, Trapped Again and Love On The Wrong Side Of Town, the mass held the assembled in the tight grip of love and the sway of rejoice.

One can only imagine what it would mean to the people of Liverpool if Steven van Zandt managed to get his friend Bruce Springsteen to sing to the long standing and the newly converted, but if the reception, if the applause and sense of ecstatic that was in evidence at the Liverpool Academy was anything to go by, then it would be a night of pure beauty, one that Little Steven And The Disciples Of Soul themselves delivered with incredible passion.

Ian D. Hall