LIVE REVIEW: Billie Marten @ High Noon Saloon
Words and Photos by: Aideen Gabbai
There’s nothing better on a freezing night than some jazz-folk fusion. As the windchill plunged to nearly -30 on a Friday night, British artist Billie Marten performed at the High Noon Saloon on one of the last stops on her tour. Surprisingly, the venue was full, and the vibe at the show was far from icy.
Folk-pop artist Nuria Graham opened. Her set blended guitar with a sample pad of twinkly synths, all topped off with her moody yet feather-light vocals. During her set, she performed her English songs, but at the last second she swerved to one of her Spanish numbers. “I have a bit of a weird accent in Spanish since it’s my second language,” She disclaimed. “Well, I guess you guys wouldn’t know either way.”
It can be sometimes difficult for artists who have mellow discographies to engage their audience during live shows. Thankfully, that was absolutely not the case that night.
The band’s sound is cozy, fuzzy and entrancing. Billie Marten’s voice is soft yet textured, and it’s complemented well by the jazz-folk combination that her band brings. Throughout the course of the show, the drummer furnished the beat with flourishes of novelty windchimes and tangles of bells.
After the band finished up their second song, “Just Us”, Marten leaned into the mic and declared “Now, we are cooking” in a lilting proper British accent. The crowd laughed.
Marten’s experience as a performer is evident – over the course of the evening, she cultivated an intimate, joyful energy in the venue. She interacted with fans one-on-one, like there weren’t 200 people in the venue.
“You, sir, understand this album,” she called out to a man in a beanie about seven rows back, who was reacting enthusiastically to every song she played from Dog-Eared.
The front few rows of the concert seemed to be almost exclusively made up of couples hugging each other and swaying to the music, if that reveals anything about the energy in the air. It had a coffee-shop vibe in the best way possible, like sitting in a big armchair with a hot cup of tea.
During the set, it was easy to tell which pieces were from Marten’s most recent album, Dog-Eared, because of the lusher, more expanded sound she’s created on her fifth studio album. It impresses and mesmerizes, creating a unique otherworldly sensation that surrounds the listener.
Before the last song of the night, Marten let the crowd know that she’d hidden an embossed bookmark in an independent bookstore somewhere in Madison, and that she was challenging people at the show to go out and find it.
This is a part of her “Turning Pages” project, which she does on every stop of the tour to get her fans to visit local bookstores. Her most recent album, Dog-Eared, is interlaced with storybook references, so this series is an homage to that. She shared that initially she’d first gotten the idea here in Madison, and had hidden a bookmark in Lake City Books. A girl in the third row shouted out that she’d been the one to find that book last year.
The band finished the night with “Swing”, a number with a bluesy, rhythmic sound. Marten’s decade spent building her sound and her fanbase really shows in her live shows, and overall, the concert was a great way to spend a chilly night: fun, cozy and convivial.
