Friday, 13 May: to the New Theatre, Oxford (me, Olly, Ed and Ben). Rufus Wainwright in town. Our first gig by him. Audience ranging from the very young to some seriously dedicated middle-aged female fans. One 30-something man said to me as we waited outside, 'Are you going to hear Rufus?' — European accent (? Belgian); reverential, awed tones.
I like his CDs and there is no question his is a top-drawer song-writing talent which, like his audience, ranges widely: genres a-plenty, straight or parodied, melancholic and romantic. We enjoyed the gig a lot, but his tendency to blur words wasn't helped by the sound-system. I knew several songs, but others were simply … sound.
Memorable songs: 'The Art Teacher', 'Peach Trees', 'Old Whore's Diet', 'Dinner at Eight', 'The One You Love', 'Crumb by Crumb' …
Memorable comment: 'chanson terrible'.
I forgot my camera. Some very indifferent camphone photos here, here and here. (These fail completely to capture the full nature of his and the band's fairy/witch encore 'tease act — so oddly safe and … popular with the crowd.) Some notes on a number of the songs we heard can be found here, and a review in the Independent of an earlier leg of this tour, here. More reviews on RW's own site, here.
