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| Rufus Wainwright, 2018. |
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| Lucy Wainwright Roche. |
Last night my wife and I saw Rufus Wainwright and his
half-sister Lucy Wainwright Roche at the Minnesota Zoo. We’ve seen Rufus
several times before, at Orchestra Hall in 2010 and in 2017, at the Zoo in 2012, and at the Fitzgerald Theater in 2013. I haven’t seen Lucy Wainwright
Roche before, and I enjoyed her songs, which highlighted her intelligent lyrics.
Lucy is also quite funny, with a very dry sense of humor. After just a song or
two, she asked the audience if anyone had any questions for her. She was
serious, and eventually some people shouted out some questions. One of them was
the inevitable “How are you related?” She responded, “I assume you mean how am
I related to Rufus?” Lucy didn’t tell us the names of very many of her songs,
so I can’t tell you what she played. However, she did close her set with a lovely
acoustic version of Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.” Lucy also sang backing
vocals on a couple of Rufus’ songs.
Rufus put on an awesome show, as usual. This was a solo
show, and he has the musical chops to pull it off. He played piano and some
acoustic guitar. He’s an exuberant guitar player, pounding the strings with
panache. Rufus joked about wanting his new album to do well enough so he could
afford a guitar tech. Whenever I write about Rufus Wainwright it’s always a
challenge for me to describe his music if you haven’t heard it before. He’s a
difficult performer to try to categorize, as his music mixes pop, classical,
Broadway, and opera in a style that is distinctively his own. His beautiful,
soaring voice adds greatly to the flavor of his music—there is simply no one else
that sounds like him.
Wainwright played a mixture of songs from his back
catalogue, and he also played some new songs from his upcoming pop album, which
he said will be out “in about a year.” He played several of my favorite songs
of his, including “The Art Teacher,” which I simply love. It tells the story of
a girl who falls in love with her art teacher, but she never acts on her
feelings. “He asked us what our favorite work of art was/ But never could I
tell him it was him.” I also love his song “Out of the Game,” the title track
from his 2012 album. It’s a catchy and smart piece of pop writing. In a perfect
world, it would have been a huge hit single. Another one of my favorites that
Rufus sang last night is “Montauk,” which has catchy lyrics that often get
stuck in my head.
The new songs that Wainwright played, “Peaceful Afternoon,” “Early
Morning Madness,” and “Only the People That Love” were all interesting, and
whetted my appetite for his next pop album. Rufus also sang a satiric hip-hop
song about Trump that he wrote in collaboration with someone whose name I can’t
remember. It was quite funny. A highlight of the show was his lovely version of
Leonard Cohen’s “So Long, Marianne.” Hearing Wainwright’s big voice on that
song was wonderful. Another vocal highlight of the show was the acapella
version of “Candles,” a very moving song about his mother’s death.
For the encore, Wainwright sang “Going to a Town,” with its
refrain of “I’m so tired of you America.” He cheekily dedicated the song to the
trumpet player from the Minnesota Orchestra, who walked out as a political
protest during the song last December. I was wondering if Rufus would mention
that controversy during last night’s concert. He closed the show with the
inevitable “Hallelujah” and “Poses.” Once again, it was an evening full of
excellent music from Rufus Wainwright.
Set list:
Beauty Mark
Memphis Skyline
Out of the Game
Jericho
Peaceful Afternoon
The Art Teacher
Early Morning Madness
Gay Messiah
Only the People That Love
Trump Song
So Long, Marianne
Montauk
Alone Time
Candles
Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk
Going to a Town
Hallelujah
Poses
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