Susan Hedges at the International Pop Overthrow 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Susan Hedges surely has one of the most distinctive voices on Merseyside. That voice, one that can soar as high as an angel with a helium addiction or as deep and powerful as if able to hold its own in a bar brawl and come out as the last one standing in a cage fight, unbloodied, unbowed and unrepentant, is one of the reasons that Ms. Hedges is always in demand and quite rightly so.

The International Pop Overthrow is an event that suits her almost majestic style down to the ground, the feeling of redemption her voice offers as it plays against her keyboards is perhaps one of the major points of her continued involvement at The Cavern, an involvement which ranks as one of the absolute experiences in which to place the firmly laid buttock and take the opportunity to tell Sunday that as a day of rest it doesn’t do a good job and that for half an hour Ms. Hedges is the only game in town.

The resonance in the voice is one of the reasons that Ms. Hedges is so well respected, the other being is that there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to not enjoy her performance, she gives everything over to the crowd and there really is no holding back, no sense of withdrawal from the point of delivery, just sheer honesty in every single note.

On C.D. the music is haunting, it rebounds round the room as if pursued by a pinball marker, live and in full flow it’s like the beautiful sound of a thousand ships crossing the Atlantic, their engines working to great harmonious capacity, the waves of anger quelled and mastered, spectral, earthy and as real as the soul can handle at times.

Songs such as Changing Lanes, You’re No Good, All Of Me, a truly tremendous version of The Beatles song Drive My Car, Charlotte’s Web and the tour de force associated with Jerry Lee Lewis’ Great Balls Of Fire all combined to make the Sunday afternoon at this year’s I.P.O. really go with a bang and with style.

To turn down a chance to see Ms. Hedges perform in her home town you would have to be mad, Sundays were made for moments like this.

Ian D. Hall