Rufus Wainwright review: now they know how many capes it takes to thrill the Albert Hall
“We’re here tonight to celebrate the 20th anniversary of my career,” declared Rufus Wainwright, decked out in the top hat, frock coat and sparkling vest of some fabulous 19th-century railway tycoon. More accurately, we were celebrating the emergence from a cocoon of folk royalty (mother Kate McGarrigle, father Loudon Wainwright III) of one of the most flamboyant and ambitious talents of the century so far.
Over two sets, Wainwright performed much of his 1998 self-titled debut album and all of his 2001 breakthrough classic Poses, documenting an early era spent fine-tuning his impulse for theatrical bombast, before the needles of Broadway melodrama began tipping into the red and everything went a bit Judy Garland.
The debut album songs revisited in the first half recalled an embryonic showstopper prodding at the edges of traditional song-craft. The elegance and grandeur that Rufus would come to master were already in place, but still scouting for individuality. Whether Wainwright’s Dickensian band – taking their sartorial cues from references to Victorian hospitals and the Elephant Man in the jazzy shuffler “In My Arms” – were tackling the siesta heat-haze of Barcelona, ragtime swings like Foolish Love or the steam-powered tumble of Danny Boy, they’d often take wrongfooting twists and turns, playing with Americana like a tricksy midfielder.
Wainwright’s banter remained strong too: he joked about Leonard Cohen being “obsessed with me” for admiring the funereal beauty Sally Ann and explained how Beauty Mark was written as a response to his mother telling him his earliest songs were “all terrible”. Hence its melodic bite and attitude.
When he returned for set two in a golden junk-shop cape – it was, he’d later explain, “a three-cape show” – it was to mark the spectacular charm and focus he found on Poses. As an edifice of drama and decadence dotted with breezy pop songs (California, Grey Gardens) and lush bayou sambas (Greek Song), it struck the perfect balance of frivolity, romance and the wit of the damaged rock survivor.
The euphoric Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk was essentially The Entertainer after a stint in rehab, his stripped-back cover of his father’s country ode to loneliness One Man Guy was utterly spellbinding, and when Rufus swept the crow-feathered cape two from on top of the piano and graced its keys with a virtuoso Poses, you wondered if, somewhere, Prince Albert was getting goosebumps.
Yet it was The Tower of Learning that best encapsulated the climactic tension and release that has become Wainwright’s forte, building from austere, ceremonious beginnings to a moment of dizzying romance. “All the sights of Paris pale inside your iris,” Rufus crooned, and the Albert Hall dome itself seemed to melt.
Albums dispatched, the evening ended with the stage full of fans carrying candles, the hall full of iPhone stars and Wainwright wrapped in a gigantic candyfloss cape that virtually ate the entire stage, leading the crowd in a lustrous Across the Universe. He didn’t explore his third album here but, as the old stage adage almost goes, leave them wanting Want One.
