Tag Archives: Gig Review

Ragz, Gig Review. Liverpool Winter Festival, St George’s Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There are certain musicians that when they leave the stage after a gig they leave a gaping hole so large that it never seems possible to ever fill it again. The gig may have been tremendous but that lingering presence is enough to just fill the evening with the slight tinge of regret. Imagine then the wake of rippling, surging emotions for a city who had taken a musician of sterling quality under their wing and adopted, as it is that city’s right to do so, to find that she was going to finally go back home to her native Norway. That hole for many looked deep, bleak and never ending.

Ragz, Gig Review. Liverpool Winter Festival, St George’s Hall. full post

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

Thom Morecroft And The Full Moon Band, Gig Review. Zanzibar Club, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There are many hundreds of reasons for the unshakeable belief that Liverpool’s music in the early part of the 21st Century is something to savour, to relish and enjoy, not to keep closeted away in some dusty attic room and for only a handful of people to nod sagely at but always going back to the moment that music in the U.K. really started.

Thom Morecroft And The Full Moon Band, Gig Review. Zanzibar Club, Liverpool. full post

(557 words, estimated 2:14 mins reading time)

Jack Omer, Gig Review. Zanzibar Club, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Staying in is sometimes too tempting an offer. The chance to baton down the hatches, especially in what could be a cruel winter, is not just tempting, it can be so enticing and you would only be human to succumb. However in an area that really makes other places, towns and large urban societies look upon it with envious eyes when it comes to its abundance and well attended music venues, that temptation must be fought and beaten, especially when you come across a support act for a major star that just gets every musical juice flowing and the blood pumping round a body that is desperate to be assured that it’s alive.

Jack Omer, Gig Review. Zanzibar Club, Liverpool. full post

(445 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

Alexandra Jayne, Gig Review. Zanzibar Club, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

As with anything in life there are slow burners and there are instant attention grabbers. The slow burners sparks, splutters and struggles against the prevailing wind but ultimately wins through and burns very bright. Then there are the attention grabbers, the ones that clutches at the heels of the interested viewer, listener, interloper and effects how they look at everything, both are valid and both, if nurtured, will stay long in thoughts of those moved in the musical sensually.

Alexandra Jayne, Gig Review. Zanzibar Club, Liverpool. full post

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

Black Star Riders, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Sometimes as an audience member, it only takes the intro music, the sound of footsteps echoing across the floorboards and the flicker and change of light to realise that not only are you in for a gig of high quality but also that you are in the presence of greatness.

Black Star Riders, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool. full post

(543 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

The Dead Daisies, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

In a world that becomes ever more complex and awash with more art being produced than ever before and from all parts of the globe, it is natural to miss something or someone in which when you do finally catch up with them can either be embarrassment or a blessing. In the case of The Dead Daisies, the performance they gave at the 02 Academy in Liverpool was greeted with an air of enthusiasm that befitted the occasion of main support to Black Star Riders and was firmly in the court of a band that should be appreciated.

The Dead Daisies, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool. full post

(395 words, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

Western Sands, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

It may always come as a slight surprise that some people are quite willing to part with hard earned cash for a gig and then proceed to miss at least half of it. Of course there is work; that cannot be helped, it is part and parcel of being in the kind of society that we are. Then there may be child care issues to consider. However that surely still leaves a fair percentage, a sizeable chunk of a gig going audience who only ever turn up for the main act and perhaps don’t even want to take the chance on something new. For those that made their way to the o2 Academy in Liverpool in good time to see Western Sands and The Dead Daisies, there was a feeling of overwhelming nodding approval in what they saw.

Western Sands, Gig Review. 02 Academy, Liverpool. full post

(438 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

Go West, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

You can really never have too much of watching a great set of musicians perform on stage, a furtive reminisce of singing along to a set of records as teenager and knowing that surrounding you are 2,000 people in the same building doing exactly the same thing and the realisation as you try to take in all their faces that each one of them is almost deliriously happy.

As part of the very cool package which included The Christians and and Hue and Cry, Go West’s Richard Drummie and Peter Cox thrilled an audience completely with their set and gave those thoughts of being a teenager in the 1980s a helping hand with their playful recollections.

Go West, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

(466 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

Hue And Cry, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

For anybody who was at Eric’s in Liverpool when Hue and Cry, the brothers Greg and Pat Kane, in May 2012 when the music they performed was so serene, so brimming with the bounty of many years as being one of the great bands to emerge from the late 80s that if the world had ended somehow in a hail of cosmic dust, nobody pretty much would have minded. Now to witness their set at the Philharmonic Hall would have just about having any audience member packing their bags and asking their own personal deity which way they should be heading.

Hue And Cry, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. full post

(468 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

The Christians, Gig Review. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

It may have been a shorter set than any of their home grown fans may have liked but there could be no doubting the honesty, the respect and love from band to audience and given back a hundred times over.  There was obvious mutual sheer enjoyment which accompanied the half dozen songs performed by The Christians as they opened up a terrific night of 80s/90s musical nostalgia at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

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

(429 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)