The Looking Glass Presents: Review

For a while now, Liverpool has been crying out for a live music event where students can come together and listen to the cream of what our city has to offer without the painful expense that normally comes hand in hand with live music.

New musical promotion outfit, The Looking Glass, has come to our aid to save us from the brink of what seems to be an ever increasing DJ dominated music scene.

Launched only last month by a small yet innovative group of UoL 2nd year students, The Looking Glass has already caused a buzz, publishing reviews on hotly tipped stars of the future such as Alexandra Jayne, as well as giving us their take on household student events such as LDMS Presents and Eat Your Greens.

However, simple blog reviews were never the sole intention for these budding musical enthusiasts. Earlier this week, The Looking Glass launched their first free live event located on Parr Street’s idyllic yet soulful venue of Studio 2.

Here they played host to some of the best up and coming talents Liverpool has to offer, including the acoustic driven folky five-piece ’Great Plain Sundance’, as well as energetic alternative/indie four-piece ‘The Loose Hearts’. And just for good measure, the perceptive boys from The Looking Glass even threw in a duo of Spanish buskers they’d found on Bold Street only the day before. A spark of genius I must say.

Spanish Busker Frontman

The night itself went off without a hitch with the live sound perfectly complimenting the acoustics of Studio 2.  Undoubtedly, the venue is one of the coolest and most captivating I’ve seen in Liverpool so far.

All the bands produced impressive performances, with the Spanish duo busting out covers of fan favourites such as Oasis’s ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ and Bowie’s ‘Starman’, while ‘Great Plain Sundance’ and ‘The Loose Hearts’ performed original songs, highlight tracks being ‘Up All Night’ and ‘Mary’.

The event also managed to draw an impressive and enthusiastic crowd of many like-minded music lovers, which by far surpassed the expectations of the organisers before the launch.

Great Plain Sundance

The Tab caught up with the guys behind The Looking Glass. They said: “There’s so much good music in Liverpool at the moment that gets passed by, so we’re just trying to give new artists a stage to speak on.

“We were just sitting around talking about how much good stuff is coming out so we thought we’d just set it off and see where it goes from there.”

Chatting about their launch, they said:

“Without sounding too self-aggrandising we think the launch went really well. We had a great time. There were quite a few people there and the bands seemed to have a great time too, so that’s what it’s all about really.”

You can catch the next instalment of The Looking Glass Presents on the March 20 at Studio 2, now  a monthly fixture in the Liverpool music scene calendar. Entry is free.

The Loose Hearts

Updates can also be found on their blog, Twitter and Facebook.

Pictures by Celia Marker.

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