Category Archives: Live

Alison Moyet, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

To make the audience focus completely on the drama unfolding before them takes consummate skill, a deftness of spirit, the potency of allure and the mystery, the sense of living through a moment so tangible that it seems all the functions of the human body stop what they are doing and just sit in the honour of the spectacle; to focus so much that you cannot hear a crowd breathe during a song and then applaud like a series of rolling thunderstorms across an empty desert, that is the absolute found.

Alison Moyet, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

(456 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Billy Bragg, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Everything comes full circle and in some cases it is with anger, the rage and resentment that what you first fought and rallied against in your younger days, somehow becomes the very political ideal that you have to fight and lyrically wrestle with once again; to see in your life time the hatred that others wear like lounge suits and serious ties return is to know that the battle against tyranny and vile fascism is an ongoing struggle but one that must always, with the keen eye of vigilance, be waged.

Billy Bragg, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

(522 words, estimated 2:05 mins reading time)

Seán McGowan, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Port cities have this unnerving ability in which to produce musicians which captivate the love of vocabulary and language; perhaps it comes down to the use of words on the docks, the different ways of having a conversation between two people from places which have nothing in common but the sea that breathes between them. Whatever the answer may be, some who hear the words somehow manage to make new worlds out of it and spread that verbal onslaught towards those willing to listen and take heed.

Seán McGowan, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

(389 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

Ricky Ross, Gig Review. Capstone Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Ricky Ross at the Capstone Theatre, Liverpool. November 2017. Photograph used with kind permission by David Munn Photography.

It seems a strange departure when you first see the piano on the stage at the Capstone Theatre, the audience knows full well it is not going to be a performance in which the roof of the Echo Arena would shake and feel the storming pull of wave after wave of pop hits and the shake of expectation of Deacon Blue favourites that have become a staple on the Liverpool calendar since the venue opened. However, when it comes to Ricky Ross, almost anything is possible and the Capstone Theatre roof must have been concerned for the future of its position.

Ricky Ross, Gig Review. Capstone Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(450 words, 1 image, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

Anthony D’ Amato, Gig Review. Capstone Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Anthony D’ Amato at the Capstone Theatre, Liverpool. November 2017. Photograph used with kind permission by David Munn Photography.

Even today in the ease of travelling across oceans and different time zones, there is something distinctly admirable about letting go of the comfortable and the secure and opening yourself up to the possibility of the unknown and possibly uncharted. To leave one’s home town behind, to venture into the space between love and acceptance is a challenge, no matter how old, no matter how experienced; it is still one that marks you out as having the chops to spread your word far and wide.

Anthony D’ Amato, Gig Review. Capstone Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(396 words, 1 image, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

Heaven 17, Gig Review. Hanger 34, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

If there is a place beyond this mortal coil in which the good might be seen to live on, to continue offering words of sage advice and the beat of ten thousand rampant hearts crying out for more, then it arguably should have a number attached to the end of the everlasting; 17 would always be a comforting pulse, a groove to get behind and in Heaven 17 the sense of 80s enveloped pop was always going to be a night of paradise and ecstasy for those at Liverpool’s Hanger 34.

Heaven 17, Gig Review. Hanger 34, Liverpool. full post

(420 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Blancmange, Gig Review. Hanger 34, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There are moments in Pop history that unforgivably seem to be forgotten by the majority, that some groups, lauded rightly by those whose lives were changed by the positivity of one song, have been allowed to be seen as a memory, a reaction to past events and the recall of certain emotions. Bands such as Blancmange offered a way of communication, of sincerity that arguably was unique to them, and one that for everybody who made their way to Hanger 34 on cold Saturday night in Liverpool would have been ecstatic to celebrate; it was a celebration that was wild and proper.

Blancmange, Gig Review. Hanger 34, Liverpool. full post

(432 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

Metallica, Gig Review. The Hydro, Glasgow.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Metallica at the Glasgow Hydro. October 2017. Photograph used by kind permission of Graeme Smith.

The question is always asked, when will Metallica tour again, when they come and do more than one performance at a festival inside the U.K., invariably in a field somewhere as the night envelops the crowd and the memories of shows inside small venues, let alone the glory of the sell out arena start to fade into the distance. The bigger the group, unfortunately the more the world wants to share in the music, and that is of course arguably the only right way to think.

Metallica, Gig Review. The Hydro, Glasgow. full post

(470 words, 1 image, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

The Musical Box, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

It is somehow easy to dismiss the creativity of people, the stroke of genius that inspires others, that captures the zeitgeist and in which something truly incredible can arise, a spectacle, theatre of the mind. It is easy to dismiss it because to some eyes it looks like fun, that the players are solely reaping the applause for having performed a song, written a poem, created a play in which political leaders quake.

The Musical Box, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

(508 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

The Pretenders, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Those of a certain age will remember fondly The Pretenders bursting onto the music scene in 1979 with The Kinks supremo Ray Davies’s song Stop You Sobbing, then quickly following up with many a fan’s favourite Kid and their most well-known song Brass In Pocket. New Wave music at its best!

It was a glorious time to buy music, audiences had another female fronted Rock band, crowds were spoilt, Blondie and The Pretenders recording equally classic Pop songs; the people who went to see the shows were not just spoilt, they were there at the start of a new dawn.

The Pretenders, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

(424 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)