So, the Rufus Wainwright show.

I saw him two years ago in Madison. The audience remained seated, which was ideal; at the Riviera tonight, it was standing room only. I was crammed amidst middle-aged gay men, metrosexuals, overly precious college girls, and the obligatory hipsters. I couldn't see the band unless I stood on the tips of my toes. There was a girl standing beside us who sang along with every song, which was fine during the loud ones, not so much during the quiet ones. It was not an ideal environment. It's a good thing he puts on such a good show, because there are few performers I would be able to enjoy while standing for two hours in a sweaty, smoky interstice on the bottom tier of the venue.

Fortunately, Rufus Wainwright puts on the best show in the world, these days. He's charismatic, funny, and enormously attractive. His talent is immediately apparent, his voice is otherwordly. And he always assembles the best musicians for his tour. Last time around he had his sister Martha on guitar and backup vocals. She was absent tonight, but in her place were two women singing backup and playing a variety of instruments. There were six people on stage besides Rufus, and they all sang. I tend to underestimate the power of backup vocals, but when done well, they give me chills. His vocal harmonies are one of the most impressive things about his live shows: when everyone's going at full tilt, seven voices and four guitars, as on "Movies Of Myself", it's nearly transcendent. Last time I saw him he had Butch, the drummer for the Eels; this time I couldn't recognize the drummer at first but kept thinking that his sound, his playing was really familiar. He even looked kind of familiar, though I couldn't get a very good look at him. Finally Rufus introduced the band at the end of the show and I found out who the drummer was: Matt Johnson, drummer for Duncan Sheik and Jeff Buckley.

Speaking of Buckley, that might be another reason I was able to get over the uncomfortable circumstances of the venue and enjoy the show as a whole: Because now that two of Wainwright's contemporaries, the young talents usually mentioned in the same breathe as his name�Buckley and Elliot Smith�are gone, it's sort of up to Wainwright to soldier on. He has an enormous positivity that he didn't seem to have last time, maybe because, when I last saw him, he was supposedly in the middle of a binge involving meth and anonymous sex, and has since cleaned up. His between-song banter was priceless, of course; he got his biggest cheers of the night towards the end when he said that we've got to get rid of George Bush.

So, if he's coming through your area and you're even remotely curious, I recommend it. Just hope there are chairs.

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