Rufus Wainwright At Carnegie Hall

I ended up seeing both nights of Rufus Wainwright’s sold-out Carnegie Hall shows in which he performed the entire concert that Judy Garland did at the same place in 1961. Both shows were amazing. I even got chills and everything.

I had never heard Judy Garland’s versions of these songs (with the exception of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow,” of course), but that didn’t matter as most of the songs were familiar to me anyway, being a big fan of the hits and all. And Rufus brought it like a motherfucker. He had really great outfits too, specially designed for the event by Viktor and Rolf, who are big designers I’m told (and they’d better be with those names of theirs).

Given all of the above, the crowd at Rufus’ two Carnegie Hall shows was mostly made up of dudes who showed up with other dudes and seemed to know a lot of other dudes there. It may have marked the shortest lines ever for the ladies room at Carnegie Hall. Still, it’s kind of nice being a straight guy in an environment like this as whenever you spot a pretty girl, you can stare at her for as long as you want and she doesn’t seem to mind at all as she probably thinks you are just admiring her bag or something. I say bring it.

Also joining Rufus at his Carnegie Hall shows were his mother Kate McGarrigle, who played piano on “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” with him, and his lovely sister Martha, who sang an asskicking version of “Stormy Weather.” The three of them should just show up and play there every week I say.

In an effort to point out that I am fancy, I wanted to mention that after the second show I went to the after-party, which seemed to be sponsored by those Viktor and Rolf guys as there were big posters for their new “men’s fragrance” “Antidote” everywhere. At one point, some lady got up and gave a speech about the new “men’s fragrance” and then- in an entirely unrelated incident- some guy passed by me with a tray of mini-cheeseburgers. After downing a few of those, I headed over to a little side room where two guys in tuxes asked if I would like to “experience the fragrance.” This sounded like some sort of crazy euphemism at first but next thing I knew they were spraying the exciting new men’s fragrance on my wrist. It wasn’t half bad but it was still no competition for the natural musk I am kicking out on a regular basis without even trying.

As I drifted off to sleep later that night reeking of mini-cheeseburgers and an exciting new men’s fragrance, I was reminded once again that life is magical.

Dave Hill