Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Deacon Blue just keep coming back to the Echo Arena, it would be astonishing if they didn’t turn up at the venue, unlock the door and make themselves several discerning cups of tea, such is the passion for performing in Liverpool and their fondness for the city’s crowd.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Some people should know better, the rush of excitement though becomes too much and whilst not done in malice, it could see such moments of venues tolerating the rush to the front to see the sex symbols, the musical icons and the true stars of longevity, disappear into the night quicker than a reality television star’s career. No harm done of course as the interloper to David Essex’s stage was dealt with in the same off hand manner that accompanied the likes of Rugby pitch invader Erica Rowe, but it did for a moment detract from what was the power of a man to whom there never has been any doubt, his place in the annals of British music.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Such is the hypocrisy embedded in the national psyche that it allowed the dichotomy of the 60s to be one where the flowering of the nation started to really take great strides forward in terms of art and enjoyment but it allowed the self appointed harbingers of supposed moral supremacy to flourish unchecked and take down those they found to be objectionable; it is always a pleasure therefore surely to watch a singer who upset the blue rinse guardian Mary Whitehouse.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
In amongst the hirsute and the abundant floral facial decorations stood on stage a man to whom looked equally as impressive but also indomitable in his pursuit to be the very best man on display inside Constellations on a day when the wind and rain were conspiring to make every male in the city look blustery and windswept. Whilst others were going over their looks, quite rightly in appreciation of Beerdfest and everything facially follicle, the every impressive Ste Neildsy was marking out a path of his own and it was that excellent to witness, especially with one whose own reputation is taking great strides.
Kadence performing in Bootle, July 2016. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
‘Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Bootle rarely gets an alarm call in such an usual manner, the town founded on its proximity to the Mersey, older than Liverpool and in its day, several generations back, one of the most prosperous towns reduced in essence to one that doesn’t get the funding, nor the good vibes, that it so richly deserves. Sandwiched between the cosmopolitan serenity of its neighbours, Liverpool and Southport, the arts in the town doesn’t really get the exposure it needs, and yet like the introduction of a new memory into the world of beige, the first sound of a heavy guitar pounding against the buffeting world of past glories, the town was given its wake up call.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
On the grounds in which the stage stood inside the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, not far from the ruler of the high seas and one of the nation’s much loved ships, The Cutty Sark, now spends her well earned retirement in perpetual adoration, once roamed and played the childhood Queen Elizabeth, arguably the finest monarch the nation has ever had on the throne of England, came the sound of the reign of the new sovereign as she played her guitar in such a way that across the Thames, in the deep vaults of The Tower of London, they were looking up the line of succession into which Midland’s born Joanne Shaw Taylor was now and undisputedly the Queen of British Blues.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
It is entirely possible to believe that the structure that holds the Genting Arena together had only just stopped quaking from the previous visit of Metallica, that the combined forces of Black Star Riders, Whitesnake and now Sheffield’s finest Rock act Def Leppard were about to dislodge the settled dust and explode it down to its constituent atoms, that Metallica, for all their glory, were just a warm up act a few years back up the line for what was about to explode in the centre of the Midlands.
Ellenberg at the Liverpool Loves Festival 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Into each day something new must arise, something to find that the pleasure of being alive is as valued as it is sought after. With the advent of a new three day festival in which the city has taken to its heart, it was only quite right that one of the very latest and indeed hottest bands should make an appearance at the Pier Head as part of Liverpool Loves.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Hype can be a tool in which certain yardsticks are set out to inevitably fail. Hype may gather interest, it may circulate a powerful emotion but the problem with hype is that it soon rusts; it fades into corporate fantasy and the sloth like figure of doomed expectancy. Hype is on the same level as hysteria, it rages and roars but then whimpers like a mouse caught choosing between three different slabs of meagre cheese.
steve earle in Liverpool. August 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The word legend is, at times, overused. It is the way of the English language that almost anything or anybody can have the word placed before it and that is perfectly acceptable. For what else is the fluidity of the sematic if not for marking out certain well used phrases if it has a sense of positivity attached to it?