I suppose I'm surprised because Martha Wainwright was doing more than enough to captivate attention. Opening with the defiant strains of 'BMFA', her cry of "I wish I was born a man, so I could stand up for myself" gave way to a gutsy performance performing a set comprised largely of tracks from the excellent self-titled album. "The next song's about male genitalia, a disease we Wainwrights have," she told the crowd before launching into a rousing 'Ball and Chain', angry with her own weaknesses as much as with anyone else's. This is a woman's woman. Her voice is pure bar room, all husky and bourbon, reinterpreting the melodies and playing with the words. She swears at her guitar tuner, her band smile, everyone's enjoying it, artists are rarely this self-assured. She talks to the crowd. They talk back. She pauses after one verse of Leonard Cohen's 'Tower of Song' and invites someone on stage to sing the harmonies. "God I hate having a beautiful woman on stage with me." How can you not love her? There's delicacy too. When she sings "This life, is boring," you understand what she's getting at but by that point, no-one agreed. I certainly didn't see a cover of the Stones 'Street Fightin' Man' coming although I think this was one moment where she and her otherwise excellent band slipped a little into filler territory. The encore delivered the current single 'Factory' and a track called 'The Maker'. One last surprise - a slice of 50s French cabaret which I'm reliably informed, was about a woman waiting in springtime for her man to return from the war, a gorgeously pained finale which seems to capture Martha to a tee. | 
