Samantha Fish

---

Samantha Fish - September 13, 2025 - Celebrity Theatre, Phoenix

Samantha Fish brought her Paper Doll World Tour to the historic Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix Sept. 13 for a Saturday evening filled with blues rocking fun. But before Samantha could play her first note, the Celebrity fell into a black hole! Well actually the crowd fell under the sway of The Black Hole, the Phoenix-based blues rock power trio who were the opening act. Consisting of singer and guitarist Connor Kelly, bass man John Martinez and drummer Levi Velasquez, the guys played a 45-minute crowd-pleasing set filled with hard-charging blues rockers including "The Garbage Man" with its shades of John Lee Hooker, the Led Zeppelin-esque "Who Do You Think You Are" and a magnificent take on Buddy Guy's "Damn Right I've Got the Blues." The Black Hole has been rapidly expanding their fan base and they left for a tour of Europe right after the show.

Fish began her set with a ferocious take on the MC5 classic "Kick Out the Jams," thankfully sparing the audience from the naughty shouted intro that the MC5 often gave the song. Although the song, like many played during her set was quite heavy, it still afforded Samantha a chance at song's end to show off how she can hit the high notes. With a new album out called Paper Doll, Fish played that effort's title track early in the show; "Paper Doll" boogies like crazy and after a mid-song quiet part, explodes with fury for the ending. Samantha also played numerous other songs from Paper Doll, including the confidence-assuring "I'm Done Runnin'," "Sweet Southern Sounds," the eerie "Fortune Teller" where she rocked out playing a cigar box guitar, "Lose You" where she broke out a bottle neck for some sensual slide guitar riffing and the plea to a lover to not be nasty that is "Rusty Razor."

Changing to a different guitar after every song, Fish showed why she's gained so much respect as a guitar player as she wowed the crowd with play that was often hard rocking but precise when called for; surprisingly, with the way she attacked her axe, she only broke a string once. Fish cuts such a mesmerizing figure on stage that fans maybe didn't focus so much on her backing band, but they were an integral part of the show as the rhythm section of Ron Johnson on bass and Jamie Douglass on drums kept the beat steady while keys player Mickey Finn issued soulful sounds for many songs and some ethereal notes elsewhere. Other standout tracks in Samantha's set were "Bulletproof," a buzzing and rowdy cut where her blues gravitas shined through, a take on the Screaming Jay Hawkins cut "I Put a Spell on You" which transformed the novelty song feeling of the original into a slow, sizzling blues full of woozy guitar swagger, and "Black Wind Howlin'" which grew in intensity towards the end where the whole band was indeed howling. Late in her set Fish played "Dream Girl," a cut that moved from understated to roaring and then back to dreamy, and as far as the ecstatic audience was concerned Fish was, at least for the evening, their dream girl.

Fish has a tour schedule that keeps her on the road for the rest of the year and into 2026. Follow Samantha Fish and see all of her tour dates here.

The Samantha Fish show was produced by Danny Zelisko Presents and they have a lot of other awesome shows on tap for Celebrity Theatre including:

Cinderella's Tom Keifer - Sept. 20, 2025
Robin Trower - Oct. 9, 2025
Leonid & Friends - Nov. 9, 2025
Steve Hackett - Nov. 11, 2025
Alice Cooper's Christmas Pudding - Nov. 15, 2025
The Stray Cats - Nov. 16, 2025
John Lodge - Dec. 9, 2025

To see a complete list of DZP shows in Arizona and elsewhere throughout the country go here.

Share this article

---