Suggs at the Liverpool Echo Arena. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
The curtain draws back at the Echo Arena and suddenly one of the biggest indoor parties opens up before an excited and fervent audience full of passion. A collective desire to see one of the best bands of their generation perform their new songs and greatest hits for them, it can only mean one thing…that Madness are back in town again.
Marianne Galloway, part of the folk band Galloway, Culbert and Doyle. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Liverpool’s much prized status as the most cultured city within the U.K. has been further enhanced in recent months by the emergence of a young traditional folk band with the guile and intelligence that marks them out as a very special breed of musicians.
Galloway, Culbert and Doyle are three University of Liverpool students who have brought to their adopted home a sense of pride in reviving the spirit of traditional English folk music and confirming that Liverpool is quite rightly the City of Culture in England.
Dave O’ Grady and Mersey Wylie at Leaf. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
If Dave O’ Grady was special before, then the added inclusion of the amazing talented vocals of Mersey Wylie adds another dimension to the man with a voice like velvet.
Robert Vincent at Leaf on Bold Street. Photograph by Ian D. Hall
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Even if you have been aware of an artist’s work for a while, there is something unimaginably superb at catching them live for the first time. With Robert Vincent opening up at Leaf before Dave O’ Grady, the audience realised very early into Robert’s set that they were in for a very enjoyable and exclusive, entertaining evening.
Amanda Somerville of Trillium. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It’s a long way from Flushing in Michigan to the delights of one of Liverpool’s major music venues but there is something that the two areas have in common and that is the adoration Amanda Somerville is able to command as part of the Symphonic/Progressive metal group Trillium.
To open for the premier Midlands Rock band Magnum is a huge honour and one that is not given easily but Amanda Somerville and her creatively intelligent band have more than earned that right and proceeded to prove the point over and over again during the early part of the evening.
Tony Clarkin of Magnum. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
No matter how times Magnum come to Liverpool, the five members that make up the premier Midlands rock band give a show worthy of their incredible pedigree and vivid and descriptive music.
The o2 Academy in Liverpool has played host to Bob Catley, Tony Clarkin, Mark Stanway, Al Barrow and Harry James on several occasions and each time the five men step out on stage the reception they receive is akin to any of the local bands that make Liverpool the burgeoning powerhouse of 21st century music. On the back of the band’s latest release, the critically acclaimed On The Thirteenth Day, Magnum were once again lauded by their fans of the North-West.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It can be completely absurd sometimes to see a band so geometrically at odds with the ethos of the main act that a casual observer may question the ethics of putting two such disparate groups together on the same bill. With the fantastic Citizen Fish supporting The Levellers at the o2 Academy, Liverpool on an impassioned night, there were no such worries at all.
Citizen Fish are sublime, a welcome antidote to pop greed that stutters and skulks its way through mainstream television and subverts the national conscious. In this there couldn’t have been a finer band to perform their anti-corporation music than the Bath group.
Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
A darkened o2 Academy is a place of wonder, the expectation can come filtering through the shadows and the tension is almost palatable and worth bottling for sale. A band can, in the time that it takes to walk from the downstairs dressing rooms to the exposed stage in front of a capacity crowd, become kings for the night or drown in their sorrows after the evening has ended. One such group that always plays at the very highest of their ability and performs incredibly well live is the men that make up The Levellers.
Mike Peters at the o2 Academy, Liverpool. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
It has to be said that Mike Peters really is the epitome of musicians who never know how to sit still and take in their place in society, nor can he ever be accused of giving anything less than 100 percent when he is on stage. Whether as part of one of the finest bands to come out of Wales, The Alarm, his occasional forays into the world of Big Country of which he has done a splendid job fronting or when it is just him, a guitar and a harmonica; he never ever gives less than the crowd deserves.
Natalie McCool performing at Mello Mello. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Mello Mello may have been threatened with senseless closure earlier in the summer, thankfully this den of good music in the heart of the city centre, tucked neatly in amongst the bawdy and forlorn is still operating and still putting on nights of interesting and well crafted music. It is a good job really as those who watched Widnes musician Natalie McCool play her set with oodles of style may have wondered where else they could have caught this essential music maker if not for Mello Mello.