Live review: Above the Beaten Track @ the Bluecoat 30/8/14

Live review: Above the Beaten Track

Artists: ME & Deboe, Jo Bywater, Only Child, Paul Straws, Niamh Jones

Date: Saturday 30th August 2014

Venue: the Bluecoat

Reviewer: Ian D Hall – Liverpool Sound and Vision

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ME & Deboe

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

To dislike ME & Deboe is to have the same outlook as a block of stone being chipped away by the most inept and undedicated of Masons, for just to be in front of Mercy Elise and Sarah Deboe is to understand that music is the most perfect of pursuits.

Recently the pair have wowed, stunned and musically tore apart audiences in America and rightly so, a nation in which at times you can’t help but realise takes British artists more seriously than a bands home grown crowds. Keeping up with their diary has been in which several reveals were opened up before anybody who takes a keen interest in these of things would have hugged themselves tightly in the thought that ME & Deboe were going down so well in the various cities they were playing.

This respect for Mercy Elise and Sarah Deboe certainly flew back across the Atlantic pond with them, perhaps arguably in first class, pampered with exclusive offers and a good inflight film and in The Bluecoat, that respect was amplified and strengthened as if all barriers that were in the two women’s way were scattered to the wind, shreds of twisted emotions dispersed and placed at the feet of those standing in their way.

ME & Deboe are loved because of who they are and for what they achieve when they take to the stage, in old parlance they straddle the stage like gunfighters, the emotion of the old west in their hands but instead of battling it out with six bullets, this six stringed affair is even bigger spectacle, a draw in the heat of the day in which the only causality is the fluttering heart of admiration, the songs tend for the wounded beast and healing is the order of the day.

With ME & Deboe, the audience knows they are in the hands of masters, they know their musical needs will be met and cared for, nurtured like a poem in the hands of a professor. With the songs placed before The Bluecoat audience, the only regret of the day was the understanding that recently America has had more of these two women’s time than a Liverpool crowd who knows and loves the harmonic display and in which ME and Deboe give Simon and Garfunkel a run for their money.

Songs such as Forward, the amazing Just Go, Glass Face and the outrageously enjoyable Mother Shipton all made up for America having this superb duo in their musical back yard at the expense of their British fans. However for anyone who has watched these two women go from strength to strength since they got together, to read the updates of their time in that expansive and welcoming country is to feel gratification and pleasure for them and their endeavour, the adventure is not over, how can it be when so much talent growls like a pride of lions within the scorching guitar riffs and undeniably great lyrics.

With America calling now, the only thing to do is book up a flight to be there when they perform for the citizens of the country, for the distant cousins across the pond will need to know that British audiences love them just as much.

(original article here)

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Jo Bywater

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Revolution and even evolution can be triggered by adversity, the moment in which personal hardship or disaster upon a species or a country can be the catalyst in which change happens. Revolution is not something to be feared, unless you are the oppressor, if you are the one in which is placing your boot upon a human face, revolution is only wrong when the incorrect dogma takes a fall and evolution is as inevitable as empires crashing to dust eventually.

In the individual, the two towering forces are just as needed for personal growth and progression. All that was needed was the appearance of tobacco smoke spiralling in the air and leaving the tell-tale brown stain attacking the light bulb in an undignified and unnatural joust, the smooth dulcet tones of a bar tender with a soft Manhattan accent taking orders and flirting with the customers and W.H. Auden sitting in the corner licking the top of his pen and taking down notes of the woman with the new Blues sound. Jo Bywater would have been right at home in the clubs surrounding 77th Street in the 1960s.

Revolution and evolution happens because it must. Nature abhors not just a vacuum but staleness and unhindered decay. To watch Jo Bywater perform has always felt like an honour, a privilege in which to sit and wallow in the sheer exquisiteness of her distinctive voice. Revolution is in the air though and it is to be cheered with great fervour and going by the reaction to the new sound that Ms. Bywater placed within her set as part of Above The Beaten Track at The Bluecoat, darker Blues is on the verge of having a new hero to stand beside.

The set contained a couple of wonderful favourites for the audience, including the superb Chopping Wood and Woollen Hearts but these songs were waving a warning flag, Jo Bywater is changing, growing, and evolution smiles broadly. It is in the song Bag Of Bones that evolution and revolution dance together in a sort of karmic jig. The guitar sighs with passion loudly, the characteristic sound of The Blues hails another convert and Jo Bywater takes to it as easily as duck finding the simple village pond to simple a proposition and astounds bird lovers by sailing its way single handed across the Atlantic. Thrills come sparingly in life, Jo Bywater gave her audience several during her portion of music on the final Saturday of the 2014 summer.

(original article here)

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Only Child

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

If ever there is a time in someone’s life in which you can say to someone, “Wow, I am impressed with the dedication to the cause”, then to come on stage and play magnificently just after the heart, brain and soul have been swamped with the overwhelming emotions of becoming a parent for the first time is probably that time.

For Alan O’ Hare, emotions must have been off the scale, not only being a new father but also seeing the bursting pride he holds in his poetic eyes and voice for his band Only Child is enough to make you believe that Humanity really has a chance to rise above its own self- destruct button. In Alan O’ Hare, the class that resides in one of the biggest hearts in Liverpool is only matched by those he surrounds himself with on stage and in the songs he plays, the rallying call of a preacher showing a way forward through the darkness.

With the ever impressive Vanessa Murray on bass, John Gibbons teasing trumpet, Dan Mitton’s drums, Fiona McConnell on flute and the impressive Laura McKinlay playing the violin, her fingers dancing away on the strings as if typing a sonnet at the speed of a cheetah chasing down a gazelle in the Serengeti, joining Mr. O’ Hare on stage inside the Bluecoat, the music flowed like celebratory champagne being toasted upon the arrival of the latest addition to the Liverpool family.

Only Child’s latest album can only be viewed as one of the best of the year so far and with that in mind, it made perfect sense to play songs from the album for an awaiting appreciative audience on an August day in which the music simmered and sizzled despite the lack of seasonal warmth.

Songs such as St. Saviours Square, the superb Green Eyes Singing, the beauty of Gypsy Boy, the warning to the Westminster Empire in Dirty Work and the set closer Before and After took the crowd into the early evening with aplomb. There are guides in life, there are poets, in Alan O’ Hare and Only Child, in one soul two entities exists and the music just sends a shiver down the spine.

(original article here)

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Paul Straws

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

If Jo Bywater’s set for Above the Beaten Track Festival inside the Bluecoat could be seen as a personal revolution then Paul Straws evening appearance should be seen as the start of pleasing and game changing mutiny.

The highly respected musician has such a big following and his work with other musicians in which his lyric writing is enhanced, took a surprising and incredibly welcome turn as his songs were aided for the first time by the use of a loop pedal which surely took hold of the soul of all who watched him on the outside stage of the Bluecoat. His performance gave them reason to believe that if revolution can be viewed as a sincere construct, then mutiny is the catalyst in which personal uprisings are to be savoured.

In the heart of the purist the loop pedal could be seen as an instrument of punishment, for them it only serves notice that music has been taken out of the hand of the musician and placed squarely into the administrating fingers of the electrician and science whizz and in horror of horrors the same screaming headlines that declared Bob Dylan a Judas, a sell-out point a gnarled bony finger of hate at anyone trying something new in their set.

Utter nonsense is the only rallying call in which to defend the mind which is open to new ways of expression for what Paul Straws did at the Bluecoat was to take the opportunity in which to blow a few minds.

Although the big band experience an audience gets when listening to Paul Straws is one of the great joys of living in Liverpool, the visual delight in which the commander of the bow Vicky Mutch blows heat onto the strings of her cello or in which Andy Kettle plays keyboards like a conductor leading a top notch orchestra a part of the fabric of the city of culture, to see experimentation, a progressive mutiny underway was one in which delight turned to satisfaction.

Paul Straws’ set was enhanced by this approach, and whilst you would never want to lose sight of the overall experience of trained and passionate musicians on stage, to hear songs such as Always Got A Home, I Need You There, Somedays and One Track Mind played with this electronic addition, of a set of lyrics enhanced by one enjoying the moment was one in which if a jaw dropped anywhere then the desired effect was worth it.

To watch Paul Straws on stage, to listen to him sing is something that if you can you clear a diary for, this new approach is one that you need to find a bigger diary for, for to write about it will fill up more pages than a week to view diary will allow.

Paul Straws will be supporting The Mono LPs at Leaf on Bold Street, Liverpool on September 17th. Tickets are only £4 in advance available from wegottickets.com/liverpoolacoustic

(original article here)

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Niamh Jones

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Niamh Jones is a woman with such a sparkling voice that it is no wonder at the age of 15 she was given the opportunity to impress all who attend the highly respected nights hosted by the people at Liverpool Acoustic. Two years on, Niamh Jones is something special to behold, and inside The Bluecoat on an August day which betrayed the thought of blistering sunshine blasting its rays upon the multitude of people making their way to take in a day of music, Niamh Jones again showed the reason why she is thought of so well.

No matter where you come across Ms. Jones for the first time, you will not forget the experience, it will be engrained into your memory, it will be seared like a brand into the fabric of the society…and she gets better and better with every occasion you find she is performing.

There are some performers that no matter how many songs they have to play in a set will somehow cause you to smile from the opening note to the final flourish in which the event would have been as dull as a school dinner served on a Wednesday in January, the taste of liver and onions forever hanging in the air, had they not appeared to take you out of the musical melancholy. With five songs in which to showcase her sound and in which to place a banner around the launch of her debut E.P. in September, Niamh Jones certainly caused a ripple of excitement around the room, not just a ripple, it was like watching dropping a rock the size of a house into the middle of Coniston Water and seeing the wrinkle of the aquatic marine life scurry and rock as the ripple rampaged to the outer edge.

Her own compositions were received well, especially the sensitive opening tone of Move For Meand Ride Fast and compared well with the rather hauntingly beautiful acappella version of the traditional Irish song Parting Glass and the broadening smile inducing cover of the Labi Siffre classic It Must Be Love . If Move For Me can cause the heart to flutter then to hear a song so emotionally loved, a song which has the mental connection of always being thought of having a distinctly male flavour, that to hear it as if from the women’s point of view is startlingly cool. It gives a balance to the idea that while women obviously feel deeply about love as a man, they can also find the humour in the strange affairs of the heart.

Niamh Jones is burgeoning talent and if 15 she was good enough to play for the rightly respected Liverpool Acoustic, at 17 capture hearts beyond her years, then the future is hers to behold, those ripples will only get larger and larger as her reputation spreads.

Niamh Jones launches her self-titled EP at Leaf on Bold Street on September 12th.

(original review here)

All reviews © 2014 Ian D Hall – Liverpool Sound and Vision 

Originally published at liverpoolsoundandvision.co.uk and republished with kind permission

 

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Live review: Above the Beaten Track @ the Bluecoat 30/8/14