Rufus Wainwright

We got to see this concert last night. It was awesome!!!



Wainwright weaves darkness and light

By Chris Riemenschneider
StarTribune.com

August 12, 2010

As was instructed beforehand, there was no applause during the entire first half of Wednesday’s Rufus Wainwright concert at Orchestra Hall. Nor was there any of the singer’s sardonic between-song banter. He soldiered through his new album, “All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu,” on a starkly unlit stage like it was a funeral procession. Which, of course, it virtually was. He wrote the album during the decline of his mother, folk singer Kate McGarrigle, who died from a rare form of cancer in January. Obviously, “Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk” was out (until the second set, anyway).

Performed solely on solo piano, his classical/operatic songs – perfectly matched to the venue -- were as dark as you’d expect, but they certainly weren’t drab. “Martha” and “The Dream” were both carnival-like and twisty-turvy, capturing the maniacal side of sorrow and tragedy (the latter also showed off some mad piano-playing skills). The Shakesperian “Sonnet 43,” on the other hand, was straight-up beautiful. He performed in front of a video backdrop of a black-makeup-coated eye – the album’s cover image – which sporidically opened and closed and, in the closing tune “Zebulon,” welled up in tears. There’s probably no way Wainwright could play these songs by-the-numbers, but he clearly reached deep and ripped things out of him for the show. It was one of the more powerful, personal, captivating concerts I’ve ever seen one performer pull off by himself. And it wasn’t entirely devoid of Rufus’ grandiose personality, either: He did all this performing in a feathery black outfit with a train that stretched across the stage, like something he stole off the set of his opera “Prima Donna.”

The second half of the concert – for which he came out wearing a playfully pink-and-red suit – was more of a regular set, starting with “Beauty Mark” and including “Dinner at 8,” “Poses,” the Jeff Buckley tribute “Memphis Skyline” and “C&CM.” Rufus poked fun at the near-capacity crowd right away when he said of the prior set, “I could tell we had to sniff each other out a bit at the very beginning. I thought, ‘Let’s shed the Midwestern thing and move into your dark Scandanavian past.’ I think we got there.” His sister Martha Wainwright, who opened the show, came out mid-set to duet through a couple French songs tied to her recent Edith Piaf tribute record. She stuck around for an absolutely stunning “Hallelujah” that surely their mom must’ve been listening in on, too. “It’s been an extremely difficult time for Martha and I and our family, but we’re sludging through this,” Rufus said at the close of the show. He ended with “Walking Song,” a song his mom wrote while wooing his dad, Loudon Wainwright III (about whom Rufus also had sweet things to say). For the record: I had something in my eye walking out of the show; I'm no cry baby.

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