Rufus is for lovers: Boys who like boys, girls who like girls, boys who like girls and girls who like boys. Young, old, everyone in between. These are his people. Basically anyone who’s ever had a heart break apart in their hands and learned the hard way that you can jigsaw back together, with patience and the glue of time, but it will never be the same again. It’s like bypass surgery or Cupid’s arrow — it may not kill you, it might even make you stronger, but it still hurts when you lay the wrong way. By rights, given the enormity of his talent and charm, he should have become the Elton John Of Now by this point in his career. His swooning woman of a voice has come a long way, baby, and has never sounded better. And his vibrato remains a staggering work of heartbreaking genius. You could say the music biz failed him, or the business model that made Elton into ‘Sir Elton’ shit the bed by the time Rufus finally got up to bat. All true, of course, but more relevant is that Rufus simply doesn’t write music with that kind of vast scope of appeal. He’s a chic boutique in a department store world fast going out of business. This he already knows. As the saying goes, the point of the journey isn’t the destination, it’s the getting there. Or to paraphrase Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross: Always be arriving. Which is another way of saying that all of this — the industry misery, the Judy Garland drag racing, the commercial crapouts, the rococo arrangements, the fainting couch histrionics, the meth and the madness — happened for a reason: To establish the line of demarcation between what is true and what is permitted. Leonard Cohen knew that when he wrote “Hallelujah” — and Rufus acknowledged as much with his gorgeous encore version of said song. Which is why we think that out of all the reasons to love or hate Rufus Wainright, the best one is this: Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, he has tried, in his own way, to be free. Amen. We have two tickets to give away for Rufus Wainright at the Foundry on Friday. Fifteenth reader to email us at PHAWKER66@GMAIL.COM with the correct answer to the following question wins: Who wrote “Rufus Is A Tit Man?” Put the words MEN READING FASHION MAGAZINES in the subject line. Please include your full name and a mobile phone number for confirmation. Good luck and godspeed!
RUFUS WAINRIGHT PERFORMS @ THE FOUNDRY OF THE FILLMORE ON FRI. 5/20