She’s coming back folks, lock up your delicate sensibilities.
A May tour of Australia by Martha Wainwright, one wing of what you might call Canada’s first family of song, has been announced today and that is a fine thing. It’s been a while since she was last here and a few things have happened to her, and to us, since.
There will be more on that and her in coming weeks, and the dates are at the end of this story, but this news is a chance for Wind Back Wednesday to go back to one of Ms Wainwright’s earliest solo performances in this country.
This review, from the year 2005, holds true still – though the room she played in then has gone through a few transformations since.
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MARTHA WAINWRIGHT
The Basement, August 28, 2005
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ACCORDING TO FAMILY LEGEND, Martha Wainwright's older brother Rufus once walked into his sister's bedroom, stared into her mirror and declared that he was the prettiest. Though Martha has since said that he may well have been right, it is still a matter of debate.
But another Rufus declaration, earlier this year at the Enmore Theatre where the siblings were playing a family show with their mother and aunt, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, is not in dispute. With some wonder and admiration, mirroring the response of many in the room, Rufus declared Martha to be "a force of nature". He was right.
Martha Wainwright's voice has light trills and dark valleys; it rumbles but it also leaps and skips; it has commanding power and moments of breathy ephemera. There are times when you are sure she's somehow crossed Kate Bush and a qwaali singer, other times when you think if Janis Joplin had had Tim Buckley instead of Leonard Cohen in the Chelsea Hotel, this is what their offspring might have sounded like.
This first of three shows this week from Wainwright (with a support act in the absolutely charming and song-rich Josh Ritter you should not miss), was packed with examples.
(Photo by Camille Lundbye)
Take the kick inside of I Will Internalise, which began the night, and the late arriving punch of Bloody Motherfucking Asshole, which closed out the main set. Each comes to you with disarming gentleness and then when you drop your guard slams into your psyche with devastating effect. Waves of "where did that come from?" ran through the room.
Similarly in TV Show, where Wainwright begins by describing herself as "not such a good lover/I'm a better talker", there's a gentleness even as she completes that line with "so when you touch me there/I'm scared that you'll see/Not the way that I don't love you/But the way that I don't love myself". But as the song builds the rawness of emotion spills over the gentleness the way an overfilled dam tips into the spillway: it can't be stopped.
The rest of the truth of brother Rufus's line though comes in the realisation that Wainwright is not always in control. She is by comparison with most singers who harness and focus their (more limited) instruments, loose and capable of missteps, of oversinging and overshooting.
Sensible people would tell her to tighten up, and maybe one day she will. But sensible people can't give you the stunning surprises and thrilling rush Martha Wainwright can. Sensible people may have talent but they're not a force of nature.
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In 2024 Martha Wainwright will play:
Princess Theatre, Brisbane, May 8
Anita’s Theatre, Wollongong, May 9
City Recital Hall, Sydney, May 10
Civic Theatre, Newcastle, May 11
Blue Mountains Theatre, Sydney, May 12
The Gov, Adelaide, May 14
Odeon Theatre, Hobart, May 16
Recital Centre, Melbourne, May 17
Capital Theatre, Bendigo, May 18
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