The Bishop on Martha Wainwright at @Newtown 2.9.2005
According to several* what’s-on columns, pop-folk siren Martha Wainwright is one of the ‘must-see’ acts of recent weeks and/or months. So of course the Bishop had never heard of her—until your humble cleric’s girlfriend informed him they were going to see her play on Friday night.
Comedian Bill Bailey has noted the review-set’s strange obsession with entertainers’ appearances (apparently he’s taller and more bendy than you might expect); and, while the Bishop would like to lift himself above that trend, he won’t. Wainwright, who bears a striking resemblance to Lily Tomlin in her natural brunette, took the stage in red heels, denim skirt, partly ironed shirt and scrappy mid-length blonde hair quickly tied back—suggesting, perhaps, a cash-strapped, sexually-available bank teller on mufti day. As a bank teller, though, she has considerable stage presence, and the outfit would have gone a long way to saying forget what I look like, listen to my voice, if only it hadn’t gone such a long way to say forget what I look like, listen to my voice.
It’s good advice, though, as Waiwright’s voice is not so much a diamond in the rough as all diamond and all rough. She’s one of those singers whose vocal chords seem to have a life of their own, with more fire and smoky desperation than even her unbridled, knees-up, slap-and-tackle delivery implied. As to the songs, they sauntered back and forth between the lovely and the lovelorn; the latter, all too typically of Indy pop, substituting atonal silliness for genuine harmonic imagination (in other words, they need some work). The Bishop must also lament the over-reliance on added ninths and other ‘colour’ notes so common in acousti-pop circles. Speaking of added ninths, support act Josh Ritter was supportive enough in his I’m-mostly-in-this-for-the-chicks kinda way, with a couple of funny moments in between the earnest folkery.
A must see? Is there such a beast? If there is, this probably was—at least to let you say you were one of the ones who was there at the time.
*OK, one (that the Bishop knows of). But rhetoric, surely, permits a certain leeway.
Comedian Bill Bailey has noted the review-set’s strange obsession with entertainers’ appearances (apparently he’s taller and more bendy than you might expect); and, while the Bishop would like to lift himself above that trend, he won’t. Wainwright, who bears a striking resemblance to Lily Tomlin in her natural brunette, took the stage in red heels, denim skirt, partly ironed shirt and scrappy mid-length blonde hair quickly tied back—suggesting, perhaps, a cash-strapped, sexually-available bank teller on mufti day. As a bank teller, though, she has considerable stage presence, and the outfit would have gone a long way to saying forget what I look like, listen to my voice, if only it hadn’t gone such a long way to say forget what I look like, listen to my voice.
It’s good advice, though, as Waiwright’s voice is not so much a diamond in the rough as all diamond and all rough. She’s one of those singers whose vocal chords seem to have a life of their own, with more fire and smoky desperation than even her unbridled, knees-up, slap-and-tackle delivery implied. As to the songs, they sauntered back and forth between the lovely and the lovelorn; the latter, all too typically of Indy pop, substituting atonal silliness for genuine harmonic imagination (in other words, they need some work). The Bishop must also lament the over-reliance on added ninths and other ‘colour’ notes so common in acousti-pop circles. Speaking of added ninths, support act Josh Ritter was supportive enough in his I’m-mostly-in-this-for-the-chicks kinda way, with a couple of funny moments in between the earnest folkery.
A must see? Is there such a beast? If there is, this probably was—at least to let you say you were one of the ones who was there at the time.
*OK, one (that the Bishop knows of). But rhetoric, surely, permits a certain leeway.
posted by Salisbury at 11:44 am
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