Playing The Dome is a family affair for the Wainwrights.

"My mother played here last month," said Martha, talking about folk legend Kate McGarrigle.

"And my brother Rufus is here in a couple of weeks - you can't get rid of us, huh?"

But even now Martha is sharing the spotlight with a relative. Hiding behind a frizz of wild curly brown hair, with hands buried deep in her jacket pockets, was her soft-voiced cousin Lily on backing vocals.

Full of her usual feistiness, Martha thrashed and ached her way through an hour-and-a-half set packed with songs from her eponymous album.

Quirkily dressed in brown high heels, a short checked skirt and clingy blue top, the 29-year-old joked, "I'm embracing my inner Japanese schoolgirl".

Although a beautifully intense experience, we were regularly lifted out of the rolling melodrama of confessional ballads such as Far Away and Ball And Chain by an eclectic array of covers.

There was Leonard Cohen's Tower Of Song, The Rolling Stones' Street Fighting Man and the bar-stool blues of Nobody Loves You When You're Down And Out.

An encore of bonus tracks from her recently-reissued album saw Martha enchant her audience with a theatrical performance of Dis Quand Reviendras-Tu? which she sang in French.

The album is out now on V2.