Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 91/2/10
It took a smile, the easiest of human reflexes and the most disarming to understand that this was going to be a set in which love would not just be felt but would in turn become admiration and fully encompassed respect. For Emma Stevens, the smile she wore for almost the entire set inside Zanzibar was not one of falseness, not just placed there in which to entrance an audience, but one of the most honest beams you ever likely to see on stage by a musician as they perform a set of music that just stole the heart.
Touring on the back of the release of her album Enchanted, Emma Stevens did exactly that. She carefully took the crowd on a journey of discovery, the chance to really see through the eyes of a woman who, despite some heart breaking times in the recent past, gets up on stage and plays as though all that matters is the way the sound behaves. It must behave with sincerity and also optimism; it must show that sadness, whilst always with us in some form, can and will be overcome and throughout her set Emma Stevens charmed, cajoled and with a bounce in her step provided a fresh way of looking at a gig.
With a collection of artistes surrounding her that wouldn’t look out of place in any of the great groups currently touring and recording, then it’s possible to understand the grasp of illumination felt by the audience inside The Zanzibar Club on an Easter weekend. With tremendous local cello player Stephanie Kearley playing on night with Pete Snowdon, Sam Whiting and James Rees Flynn, Emma Stevens had the type of musician who knew exactly how to give all and still look as though it was effortless and a pleasure, the sort of players who would find themselves sitting on the edge of Central Park and giving a polished performance in honour of nine million people and just as comfortably pulling up a chair in a back street alley public house and making the locals smile all evening.
The audience in The Zanzibar Club were treated to a great set which included Once, the exceptional (Teach Me to Breathe) Underwater, Sunflower, Simple Things and the timely Hey Summer! and yet throughout it all, the music was cool, calm, breezy and just incredible. It may seem an easy thing to do, to send people out of a gig feeling as if they have spent a week lapping up sunshine after months of living in the dark but it’s rare to actually see it in action. It seems that a smile can be infectious, a well-played banjo irresistible and the combination of cello, guitar, drums and beautifully placed lyrics are mouth-wateringly alluring.
Ian D. Hall