EVE SELIS

Live Review

Robin2 , Bilston, Wolverhampton

Award-winning American blues/rock singer Eve Selis clearly enjoys being in front of a crowd and her enthusiasm for performing was at a high level from start to encore before the small but appreciative crowd at the Robin2.

Eve Selis at the Robin2, Bilston with Calman Hart

The Californian doesn’t have the most powerful of voices but she does make the most of her clear vocals which were sometimes lost among the harder rock sounds made by her assembled group of highly talented musicians. 

Certainly worthy of mention are the guitar playing skills of Marc “Twang” Intravaia, who has co-written many of the songs with Selis and “Cactus” Jim Soldi who knows how to make an axe talk.

Selis did show her versatility switching easily from rock to blues to more blue grass sounds such as The Ballad of Kate Morgan with a little bit of country thrown in along the way.

She certainly gave her latest album Family Tree a run for its money with no less than nine of the 13 tracks used in the set including the title song which was written by Calman Hart who was one half of the impressive support act Berkley Hart, from San Diego.

Selis threw in a couple of cover versions one of which was a banging version of the great Johnny Cash’s Fulsom Prison Blues, which was hammered out with real guts and the other was the done-to-death Hallelujah from Leonard Cohen. While Selis and co tried to put a fresh spin on it, it doesn’t really work.

It’s OK for the ballad part using the group’s harmonised voices but the jazzed up interludes which she injects makes it sound a little amateurish.

Among the rest of her set was a Fleetwood Mac-sounding When Is Everything Enough and Water Off a Duck’s Back which was a heavier blues sound that had hints of Amy Winehouse creeping into Selis’ voice.