Rufus Wainwright 2/20 at l'Olympia

The Rufus Wainwright concert was Tuesday, February 20 (his concert dedicated to Judy Garland where he sings all the songs she did at her 1961 Carnegie Hall show). But... it was weird. It was the only concert I've been to that didn't leave me filled with joy and happiness. Why? Because he was sick. So his voice was messed up. So the whole concert was thrown off, he couldn't hit all the notes, he couldn't give it his all, and even though he struggled he just kept falling flat. He wanted to do well, we could all see that, but he just couldn't, and struggled through it until the end. I paid 77 euros for my ticket, and had a 5th row seat which was amazing... but I still paid $100 for a lackluster concert. (I went by myself because even though I knew some other people here who had heard of him, they definitely weren't interested in the 77-euro price tag, and I don't blame them! It was fine, a little lonely though, obviously.)

I mean, it was still a pretty good show. It was cool to see Rufus singing Judy Garland songs. In between songs he talked to us in French, which was very interesting. Because of his French songs I had thought he was fluent in French. He is not. His speaking French is about as good as mine--manageable, but lots of pauses, lots of struggling for the right word/article/grammatical bit. Not fluent at all! What a surprise. But it was cool, the audience understood him. Very different from when I saw him in Tulsa, though!

And he had a full orchestra accompanying him, which was soooo coool (though sad at times when his voice was failing and the orchestra was still playing on perfectly flawlessly in comparison), and for two songs he had his sister, Martha Wainwright, come out and sing, and she was amazing, and he also had Judy Garland's daughter Lorna Luft come out and sing two songs, which was really cool.

Overall it was just strangely offputting since he wasn't at the top of his game, but I guess I'm still glad I went, it was cool to see, the theatre (l'Olympia, pretty famous actually) was really nice, and the 5th row seat was amazing with a great view, I only wish it had actually been perfect... ohhh welll.

Setlist
1. Overture: A. The Trolley Song, B. Over The Rainbow, C. The Man That Got Away
2. When You're Smiling (The Whole World Smiles With You)
3. Medley: A. Almost Like Being In Love, B. This Can't Be Love
4. Do It Again
5. You Go To My Head
6. Alone Together
7. Who Cares? (So Long As You Care For Me)
8. Puttin' On The Ritz
9. How Long Has This Been Going On?
10. Just You, Just Me
11. The Man That Got Away
12. San Francisco
13. I Can't Give You Anything But Love
(Intermission)
14. That's Entertainment
15. I Can't Give YOu Anything But Love
16. Come Rain Or Shine
17. Your Nearer
18. A Foggy Day
19. If Love Were All
20. Zing Went The Strings Of My Heart
21. Stormy Weather
22. You Made Me Love You/ For Me And My Gal/ The Trolley Song
23. Rock-A-Bye Baby With A Dixie Melody
24. Over The Rainbow
25. Swanee
26. After You've Gone
27. Chicago