First up was Jonathan Rice, whose tracks have appeared on The OC and Six Feet Under and whose debut album was produced by Mike (Bright Eyes) Mogis. With self deprecating humour and winsome approach, he easily won the audience over, especially as his acoustic songs had a lyrical bite to go with his low-key melodies and languid guitar style. Personally, I could have done with a few more musical fireworks as I'm unsure how Jonathan Rice is that different from all the others mining this particular acoustic seam. Martha Wainwright, however, was refreshingly different, which wasn't down to gender alone. Her voice was astounding, with hints of Marianne Faithful and Tim Buckley, it swooped and yodelled us on a trip around Martha’s world, which was a surprisingly tough, bolshy and, dare I say, feminist place to inhabit: R n B divas and Girls Aloud please note! Lyrically Martha doesn’t wait around for some stupid bloke to validate her appearance, love-life or behaviour. In this performance there was also a harking back to singers like Linda Thompson and Sandy Denny, not only in vocal power but in the quality of her song-writing. However, she should ditch her band of Del Amitri wannabes, who, on this performance, were strictly surplus to musical requirements. Martha Wainwright is talented enough to carry herself on her guitar playing and vocal abilities alone, and if this were a fair world musical domination would be guaranteed. |
