If Martha Wainwright’s first show of her Australian tour is anything to go by, the rest of the country is in for a treat in the coming weeks.

Indie folk duo Brighter Later did a great job at holding their audience captive as the opening act. Performing haunting and delicate songs from their first album,The Wolves, Jaye Kranz’s voice was a surrealhighlight.

Then Martha took to the stage, opening with Four Black Sheep and Can You Believe It before launching into a candid dialogue that had her audience feeling both entertained and embraced. Martha’s self-awareness and wry sense of humour is evident in both her music and her on-stage antics – making her performances feel true and raw and honest.

Wainwright’s voice dipped and soared through the deep and melancholy Some People, followed by Leave Behind, a song about the end of the world, which Martha describes as true to her ‘autobiographical and overly-dramatic’ style’.

But it was Wainwright’s performances of Edith Piaf’s French ballads that were the highlight of this Tivoli show. Determined and fierce at one moment, vulnerable and fragile the next, Martha treated fans to a powerful, highly-charged demonstration of her vocal capacity.

Maintaining momentum, Martha followed up with I am a diamond before finishing the set with Proserpina, a haunting rendition of the last song ever written by her mother Kate McGarrigle.

Audience members young and old were rapt, applauding their way to a witty encore of Stormy Weather, which had the crowd laughing and crying all at once. Martha concluded the intimate show with Factory, leaving fans elated, and demonstrating the strength of this artist at the height of her powers.

Words: Phoebe Owen

Photo: Thomas Oliver