Guest Column: Amsterdam's Ian Prowse on Liverpool's Capital of Culture year...

Living on North John Street as I do I watched 08 from the eye of the storm,I didn't have to travel to any events, they just unfolded around me when I walked out of the apartment.Each day I would clock the developments on South John Street as Liverpool One slowly crystalized, the Hard days night hotel opposite seemed to be taking an age to finish.I was impatient for the year to begin.
When Ringo Starr came out of his container box on top of St.Georges hall and sang that awful new song it didn't dampen my civic enthusiasm one bit.After all he's bound to give us 'With a little help from my friends' or 'Yellow submarine' we're all Celts, thousands of us were gathered and he knows we love singing! Alas he didn't, he took the money and ran off to disrespect the city on BBC Television.Bad start.
My own 08 really began a week after when my band Amsterdam performed at the brand new Arena for the Number One project.We'd done a duet with Elvis Costello on a Liverpool-centric album and the Arena was packed to the brand new rafters.From this point my bands good fortune through the year seemed to go hand in hand with the city's special year (if only in my tiny mind).
The Hard days night finally opened and thankfully that was tastefully done, our album 'Arm in arm' came out on Paddies day too but still there was a feeling that 08 hadn't really began.Maybe it was because the skyline was still dominated by cranes whilst down on street level walking through town was like a different Krypton factor test each day working out were you could and couldn't walk.
The moment it changed for me was Macca at Anfield.Our favourite son was coming home and he wasn't going to put a time limit on when we could ask him for autographs.
The show didn't quite scale the heights of the Kings dock in 2003 but still it was Paul McCartney out there in the real Liverpool singing those songs to his people.It was absolutely lovely and 08 had finally began.
After that is was giant spiders a go go, mad things on the Mersey, beautiful exhibitions and finally a brand new shopping centre for those that er....like to shop.
Personally I got to play at the Arena again and the Empire,St.Georges hall and Philharmonic.I made a Liverpool biased speech before we played 'Does this train stop on Merseyside?' at Glastonbury and turned down a request to sing for the Queen on May 22nd.I can't forget the date because my mother went mad with me...'But I've told all the family you are going to do it son!!'..... sorry mum but no chance.
Has 08 reached out to Kirkdale or Netherly and if not is it a failure? Certainly mistakes were made but will we remember this year as something different?
It's very easy to be cynical and the city does seem to be in a better shape now than it's been for some time. Newspaper headlines of 'Merseyslide' or 'The Bermuda Triangle of British Capitalism' or more famously 'They should put a fence around Liverpool and charge people a fee to go in'.That last one was from the Daily Mirror, a so called leftist paper. Even they disowned us.
Nowadays the city is looking good,there is a big Liverpool, still looking out to sea, still having more in common with New York, Amsterdam and Singapore than it will ever have in common with Manchester, still loud, still separate, still uncompromisingly itself.

Ian Prowse
www.amsterdam-music.com