Eleanor McEvoy

Despite the frenzy of Heineken Green Energy taking place just a dart-hop away, Eleanor McEvoy managed to attract a sizeable audience to the Pav for only the second gig in her post-natal tour. Accompanied by Brian Connor on keyboards, she delivered an evening of warmth and intimacy with an ease and grace few Irish artists can conjure.

Offering a generous helping of songs from her four albums, McEvoy again reinforced her claim as a songwriter of sterling quality, with the new UK single ‘Did I Hurt You?’, the superb ‘Easy In Love’, the inevitable ‘Woman’s Heart’ and the more uptempo ‘Please Heart You’re Killing Me’ all unerringly hitting the spot. Her new song ‘Ave Maria’ is a timely lament for those disillusioned by recent events in the Catholic Church.

In Connor she has an accompanist who deftly opts for short fills and flurries where other players, less disciplined and more self-centred, might insist on a couple of kitchen sinks. His solo on ‘Please Heart’ was particularly impressive.

But McEvoy is also honing her talents as an intriguing interpreter of songs, with Chuck Berry’s normally rockin’ ‘Memphis Tennessee’ turned into a slow blues full of stark, brooding menace. She gave her fiddle a rattling good outing on ‘Wrapping Me Up In Luxury’ and applied its lonesome touch to ‘Sleepless’ to dazzling effect. It rarely gets more intimate than this. Not in public anyway.