I just got back from seeing Martha Wainwright play a gig. Let me paint the picture a little...

She was playing at the Copper Union Hotel. Sounds like a dive bar right - something akin to the Inkerman Hotel. But oh no no. it was a swanky pants hotel, on the top floor, part of the penthouse suit in fact. Picture a glass room half
the the size of our house, 25 floors above the east village, with 3 walls (thats a 360 minus 90 degree view - more if you lean around the railing) which looks out over the vast Manhattan night. (do you understand the vastness? go up the Eureka tower then do some maths number thing that makes melbourne look many times bigger, then squish it like a bit of clay so the width gets thinner and the height gets fatter, then do that mental biggering thing again Yx X +++++Z, ok close engough).

I's surprisingly hushed up there, surprising for the cacophony that is NY. It's balmy and still and wonderful. On the horizon you can watch the flight patterns of plans landing at JFK its hypnotic. The walls all open out onto decking, there's a small bar, about 50 people. And Martha. She sings a casual little acoustic gig for 2 hours. and she sings in a whisper that stills you.

ah

With so few people around and no backstage for her to exit to, I wondered over to her to thank her. It's NYC after all, so these things happen. It was nice we had a chat, I told her how i discovered her. My Mum had arrived late to an exhibition of mine, she explained she had sat in the car and listened to 'that song about her dad', and my mum was blown away. I have hundreds of memories of my mum dancing to music but i don't know that i have ever heard her talk about a song like she did that night.

She didn't sing 'that' song for me but here it is anyway (Some people probably shouldn't listen to this)