Billie Marten / Le Ren @ Rescue Rooms

Billie Marten continues the UK leg of her Dog Eared tour with appearance at Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

Returning to the venue she claims to be more familiar with than any other, Ripon-born singer songwriter Billie Marten has little to prove following the success of her 2025 full-length Dog Eared. Nevertheless, taking to the Rescue Rooms main stage (with Canadian folk artist Le Ren for support), Marten demonstrates her long-nurtured talent with a show that, whilst soothing for the soul, held little back when it came to showing her songwriting chops.

Cutting through the silence of the crowd like a knife through butter, Le Ren’s half-hour set was surprisingly diverse for an intimate solo acoustic set. Quickly winning over the crowd with a warmth and friendliness that felt befitting for the set’s delicate atmosphere (even cracking jokes with the lighting tech), Ren launches into a series of folk and country inspired fingerpicked ballads, ultimately coalescing in a cover of a track by American Bluegrass singer Larry Sparks.

Her tender, optimistic songwriting style evokes legends in the folk genre such as Jim Croce, with the personal “Dyan” being paired with Ren’s advice to “call your mum” echoing as possibly the most memorable moment of the brief, yet utterly spellbinding performance.

With Ren’s set finished, Marten swiftly kicks off her string of songs, with a setlist prioritising material from her latest full-length. Almost immediately, Marten and her band settle firmly into a groove, polishing up the Americana-inspired beauty of her studio material with a new sense of presence and liveliness.

Bursting through newer cuts such as “Feeling” and “Clover”, as well as material from 2023’s Drop Cherries (e.g. the fantastic “Willow”), it’s clear that Marten truly knows these songs inside and out. Inviting audience members to dance and sway from side-to-side, her dulcet vocals are the perfect accompaniment to the more soft-rock oriented tracks littering the evening.

Where Marten proves potentially most impressive, though, is through her ability to stay cool under pressure and improvise. As a swell of loud feedback noise suddenly rips through the room mid way through “Toulouse”, Marten is able to laugh the incident off and continue without breaking a sweat, even joking with the crowd about the glitch sounding like “a big ship coming in”. Marten’s banter and interactions with the audience through the night make everything feel that much more human and intimate, especially so during her couplet of solo acoustic songs midway through the set.

Such remarkable crowd interactions come to a head as Marten’s guitar string snaps while tuning, leading to an impromptu round of quick-fire acapella teases to fill the silence, with even her bassist joining in to provide tongue-in-cheek harmonies. The crowd loves this and shouts up requests, and it’s almost a shame that the guitar tech has things up and running again so quickly afterwards.

The highlight of the show, though, arguably comes as Le Ren returns to the stage for a wondrous duet with Marten. Inviting the “special guest” on stage, the pair quickly banter about their shared love of country songwriting and the emotional “perils” it brings.

Taking the role of backing vocals across “Acid Tooth”, and notably Dog Eared choice cut “You and I Both”, Marten and Ren click together instantly vocally, with the crowd bursting into rousing applause as the latter track fades away.

One thing remains most apparent to all those leaving the venue after the performance is said and done - Marten is truly a master of the singer-songwriter genre, with the experience she has had touring since her teens paying off in a mesmerising fashion.

Josh Holmes

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Edited by Isabelle Tu

Photos courtesy of Josh Holmes