Wayne Lost Soul: Ballad of William Mackenzie

Reviews

First out of the stone-flagged Green Room, was Lost Soul, hailing from Red Rose country, the social composition of which he had plenty to remark upon. Mostly identifying as Wayne, the singer from Kings of the Delmar, Lost Soul turbocharged the evening’s helter-skelter into the folk-punk fairground with the appropriately titled ‘Somewhere else in the world’ a bitter sweet take on UK tourism and its less than savoury aspects. That one person’s release is another person’s pain, also typified ‘Hatred Pill’, a searing lament to losing a friend to homophobic fascists and the agony of perhaps having made the wrong decision not to catch ‘that train’ too. The neck hairs were still standing in acknowledgement of the sentiment into my favourite number, ‘The Road’, a deceptively charming sing a long song about life’s lessons and ones sometimes tortured relationship with ones parents. I would be hard pushed to find two lines of poetry that better express the joys and agonies of the transformations from childhood into knowing teenager than “skimming stones across the river/leaving broken hearts in our wake”. Sublime!"
Review by Dr. Purkis: Better than Telly gig 2010

"This left me thinking: what songs does one write at forty if you are a punk? As the generation of 1977 reaches middle age, there are inevitable backward glances to take stock of how it has all panned out, nicely epitomised here in ‘Ugly on the inside’, with uncomfortable truths hung out with the washing: maybe we are not as nice (or honest) as we think we are. But punk is an attitude not a fashion, and unfortunately many of the injustices of decades past are sadly still present. Polite society once railed against safety pins and piercing, now religious evangelists accost you in motorway service stations objecting to tattoos: “god didn’t give you your body to draw upon” we were told, in the introduction to the storming new number ‘Lost Soul’. Theological escapism may provide respite for some, but in many places in the world, joining the army is what many do to find employment and excitement. Dead end town or not, for so many the badge of respectability gained by a uniform is short lived, as teenagers head off to ‘teach the natives how to worship freedom’, only to realise too late that what they are fighting for is not what they thought. Lost Soul closed the set with two songs the sentiments of which could grace any age ‘Not in my name’, and possibly the finest song of the entire evening ‘The Ballad of Billy Ray McKenzie’."
- Yorkshire gig guide