Rufus Wainwright Great American Music Hall May 6, 2001 Photos If you love Rufus Wainwright like we do, you probably have an affection for the voices of Judy Garland or Edith Piaf as well. (Translation: incredible talents who have unfortunately become clichés by virtue of mass consumption.) Women who were not so much singers as they were *performers* that extracted the meaning of the words they sang with every minute inflection of their voices and bodies. Wainwright is very much a modern male counterpart to this tradition in both his singing style and songwriting. And...we get frustrated, because we know our friends hear the 'slick' production on the albums and roll their eyes. There's very little willingness to look past the production values and listen to the voice that's singing. Squid gets really frustrated: in this city which has become a mecca for swing-era revivalism and overpriced vintage clothing stores, there should be several groups of our peers who love Wainwright. Why not listen to a living person who can deliver much of the same ambience found the older recordings we all cherish? Someone who doesn't need to dress up in a sharkskin suit to evoke the mood of a smoky backroom bar of yesteryear? Not like he needs the help. Wainwright sold out the Fillmore the last time he was here to support his first, self-titled album. This show was a smaller affair at the GAMH to debut the songs off his sophomore effort, 'Poses'. It's a telling title that references the myriad personalities encountered in his world of tragic divas, seedy relationships with pretty boys and the alcoholic binges that oftentimes follow. Speaking of pretty boys, Daz very nearly missed getting photos of Our Hero, mostly because of the contingent of besotted 'Ruffettes' (as Squid termed them) who had staked their places, according to one fierce defender of his spot, "for three hours!". Just joking. It was actually wonderfully sweet and an encouraging sign of Wainright's staying power. He opened with the first song from Poses, 'Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk', in which he discusses how everything he loves, including love itself, is bad for him. It's got a quirky bounce to it and very much felt like the introduction to a play to Squid. She was pleased to discover that Poses was in fact intended to be like a play in different acts where 'the voice is the star'. Following that logic, Wainwright's voice is a bigger diva then Maria Callas with varying tales of lovers returning from the sea as in The Greek Song, or the unrequited passion of The Tower of Learning. We cannot emphasize this man's vocal dexterity enough, it's just no wonder his music has been labeled, 'popera'...in a good way. This was especially evident during the 'One Man Guy' with its a Crosby, Stills & Nash countrified harmonies. The song was built around verses traded between Wainwright, his sister Martha, and their bass player, Teddy Thompson. (Thompson, funny enough, is another folk progeny, being the son of Richard and Linda Thompson.) Another new song, 'Evil Angel' displayed Wainright's movement into newer compositional territory with it's heavy-metalesque stylings that seemed to be pulled straight out of the recent rock opera, 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch'. Daz was completely intrigued by 'Grey Gardens', a song based on an offbeat documentary about a first cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy who lives in their crumbling family home with her daughter. There were also nods to his older album like the cheery saloon-style solo renderings of songs like Beauty Mark. Through it all, there were simply those moments where he could've been singing the phonebook and we would've thanked him. Squid once had an instructor who used to insist that the voice be visualized as a ping pong ball balancing on a fountain of water. A distracting visual, to be sure, but one that truly applies to those who can pull it off. In certain quieter songs where that Garland-style vibrato and glissando kicked in, you could actually hear people sighing. Rufus Wainwright is one of a kind. End of story. Rufus Wainwright Here's the old DreamWorks site with fantastic individual song descriptions from the man himself: http://www.dreamworksrec.com/rufus/ An adorable fan site that features an eloquent explanation of why straight teenage girls still love Rufus: http://www.truefact.com/rufus/