Martha & The Power Cut
Whilst we wait for normal service to resume, here’s a very quick post about Martha Wainwright gig on Monday night. My boss was thrown off his horse a few weeks ago and broke his collarbone; since driving in a sling is nigh on impossible he couldn’t go and gave his tickets to me. I didn’t really know that much about Martha, but oh, what he missed.
This quirky brother-and-sister band came all the way from Australia to support Martha, and why wouldn’t you? Their tales of on-the-road mucking-in and inter-band friendliness made it sound like a tour-bus holiday camp. I could picture trust falls and camp fires with Martha leading them all in a round of “kum-by-ya”. Sweet. They even did a number on school camps, which they had written to raise money for charity. Uber-sweet. However, don’t let the folksy “we’re doing a set in our living room” routine fool you: these siblings know their business. Their drummer had returned to Australia with a mystery illness (I’m sure they know what it is, but they didn’t share it with us) so they had to cover his parts and my word, there wasn’t an instrument they couldn’t play. Julia had the guitar, bass guitar, trumpet and piano on the go whilst also singing the lead, and the others were just as talented. Clearly all those band camps paid off in the end.
I loved Angus and Julia Stone, maybe a little bit more than Martha Wainwright (who was also awesome). Despite their often melancholy tunes they were clearly having a great time performing; they simply took to the stage, chilled out and did their thing. Their songs had an underlying stillness, as though silence was another instrument, and when they came to the end and the music melted away, as it did on most of their songs, the silence seemed to rise up and lay the sound gently down before the applause kicked in. Lovely.
The Stones set the bar quite high for Martha Wainwright, though she was effortlessly brilliant and more than up to the challenge. Where the stones chilled everyone out Martha arrived and energised without even trying: there was no ‘Hello Bristol!’ shenanigans: she had good music to perform so she got straight into it. Until the second song (’Bleeding all over you’) when the main power went out about four bars into the bridge. In for a penny, in for a pound: she got on with it and gave a couple of acoustic numbers before the electricity kicked back in and got the show back on the road. Everyone in the hall was beside themselves at the intimacy of it all, and a gentle smell of wee from the die-hard fans couldn’t put us off: for two songs Martha Wainwright was in amongst us and even from the balcony, you could have reached out and touched her. Well, it felt that way, at least.
Cheesy pop and X Factor have their place, but I’m just getting too old for the disco tunes I used to love so much. Lately the only people you hear about are desperate for approval, and begging us to ring in and vote for them. Martha Wainwright is a grown-up troubador and it’s refreshing to see someone with confidence doing what they love; a lesson in how to be ok with what you like and screw the rest of them. After an excellent evening, her encore blew me away with an effortless ‘Stormy Weather’ and a brilliant, rousing closure with a cover of Pink Floyd’s ‘See Emily Play’.
How many major stars would be content to hand over their stage to their unsigned cousins in the middle of the evening and let them entertain the crowds? Fewer still to take a backseat and provide harmonies for their unknown relatives. Sylvan and Lily Lanken only gave us one song, but I loved it. Nicola, my date for the night, was not as keen: I suppose they’re not to everyone’s taste. ’Garden of Love’ was so calming it was almost horizontal, but what’s not love? And with a name like Mittenstrings you just have to adore them.
Imagine my joy when I discovered she is touring Australia in November! And then the crushing disappointment that I will be in the air while she performs. I wonder if we can move our flights?
Leave a Reply