manna & martha :::
Last night I had plans with the girls: semi-posh vegetarian/vegan fare at Primrose Hill’s Manna followed by Martha Wainwright’s show at The Roundhouse. Both surpassed expectations.
I won’t go on too much about the food except to say that as a vegan it’s always quite exciting to have so much choice at dinner and I took full advantage of being able to have whatever I liked (pretty much). The firey Mexican platter was substantial and delicious – I especially enjoyed the smoky tofu wraps with a surprisingly good vegan sour cream substitute – and the fruit crumble was soft and warm and set me up nicely for the chilly walk to the gig.
I’ve been a big fan of Martha Wainwright ever since I was urged to listen to her eponymous debut just after it was released, but have never got round to seeing her live. Big mistake. It’s extremely rare that I’ll go to big gigs these days because of, oh, so many reasons mainly relating to bad sound and audience members constantly jostling/walking around the venue, so having nice seats with an unparalleled view of the stage helped last night, as did the great sound and electrifying music.
The whole thing was so good I regularly had goosebumps and shivers down my spine – seriously, and no, this does not happen to me often! – but highlights included an intense sped-up solo acoustic version of ‘This Life’ and an astonishing duet with beatboxer Shlomo. Her mother (and folk legend) Kate McGarrigle accompanied her on piano, husband Brad Albetta played bass and synths and cousins Lily and Sylvan Lanken contributed backing vocals and keyboards respectively and took centre stage for a performance of a song by their band Mitten Strings, with backing vocals from a certain Ms Wainwright. There was a lovely warm feeling to the whole affair and it was utterly captivating stuff.
This morning I was really pleased to find that Martha is running a really lively tour blog with loads of video clips and comments from her on how everything’s going. I especially enjoyed this tourbus performance of ‘Jesus And Mary’, I hope you do too:
Leave a Reply