Live review: Liverpool Acoustic Live’s Big 10th Birthday Bash @ Leaf 16/02/19

Live review: Liverpool Acoustic Live’s Big 10th Birthday Bash

Date: Saturday 16th February 2019

Venue: Leaf on Bold St

Reviewer: Ian D Hall, Liverpool Sound and Vision


In the modern world which embraces the instant and regular change as if it is a commodity in which to brokered and haggled over, it is refreshing to find the reflection of art and music that Liverpool Acoustic offers still going strong as it reached the tremendous milestone of being part of the city’s culture for 10 outstanding years.

robert vincent and anna corcoran at leaf © 2019 Adrian Wharton
Robert Vincent with Anna Corcoran © 2019 Adrian Wharton

A decade spent promoting, encouraging, endorsing, honouring the local music scene, through Folk values and bringing in all comers to learn, to actively take part, it is to that a night of music was on offer in the bohemian like space of the upstairs room at Leaf. A night which was not lost in reminisce but which openly supported the reasons and the memories of bands and solo artists that have found their way through the doors and onto the stage at many various locations, and into the hearts of the audiences who have had the pleasure of seeing some of Liverpool’s tremendous talent on show.

kaya herstad carney © 2019 Adrian Wharton
Kaya Herstad Carney © 2019 Adrian Wharton

A decade on, music has adapted to new styles, new lyrics, heroes have come, they have gone on to bigger projects and yet like so many nights in the city run by lovers of the artful expression and the comfort of the well-played instrument, a decade on and Liverpool Acoustic has been there for it all.

stuart todd © 2019 Adrian Wharton
Stuart Todd © 2019 Adrian Wharton

A birthday party is always a keen affair, the bunting is hung, the drinks are plentiful, in the right spirit of commemoration and celebration it can be the finest of evenings spent in the company of your choosing, and there is no doubt that what Graham Holland, Stuart Todd and Derek King have achieved over the years is worth praising, rejoicing in, sharing stories and singing songs with passion; for that is what the night ultimately stood for, passion, passion in music and artist.

derek king © 2019 Adrian Wharton
Derek King © 2019 Adrian Wharton

As the music unfurled itself like a flag of defiance on a sun-kissed beach, as artists that included Rachael Jean Harris, fresh from her own successful EP launch at Studio 2, Stuart Todd, who performed his superb song Jango, Maddie Stenberg, Chris Callander, Rob Jones and Rob White, Alan O’ Hare, who eagerly releases his new album on Friday at the Philharmonic Hall’s Music Room, Rob Clarke, Derek King, the insanely gifted gentlemen from The Southbound Attic Band, the rightly admired and sensational Eleanor Nelly, Limerance, Gary Maginnis, Kaya Herstad Carney, who captured the hearts of all present with a couple of songs from her forthcoming album, including the sublime and beautiful Night Marine, and the sensational Robert Vincent, who also had another favourite of the acoustic circuit in Anna Corcoran playing on keys alongside him.

southbound attic band © 2019 Adrian Wharton
Southbound Attic Band © 2019 Adrian Wharton

It was in this gathering of supporters, admirers, keen observers and lovers of the genre and the people that preform it that the 10th anniversary of Liverpool Acoustic was rightly received, a beacon of hope and enjoyment in the vacuum of a nation’s absurd relationship with art. To be the life and soul of the party is always an accolade worth aspiring to, to be the supporter, the unswerving guardian of such evenings is to be privileged; a position rightly fitting Liverpool Acoustic.

Review originally published on Liverpool Sound and Vision

Reviews © 2019 Ian D Hall, Liverpool Sound and Vision
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