Rufus Wainwright returned to Cleveland with a maxed out show at The Odeon, spilling over with an impressive collection of gay/straight crowds packed to capacity. His "Cleveland, home of the American Industrial Revolution!" greeting was just the beginning of the rampant story telling and easy rapport with the audience that continued throughout the show. The stage's set-up was laid out with an economic simplicity of black curtain back drop and little else; special effects were unnecessary as Rufus caused palpitations while re-assembling a live version of his latest release Want One. Emboldened songs like "14th Street," with its signature broadway piano flourishes hyped up the attentively docile crowd that hung onto every chord. Throughout the evening Rufus moved seamlessly from piano to guitar and humorously added, "Rock out, let's do it!" before performing "Movies of Myself" in a lightly sarcastic parody of musicians who rock and take it way too seriously.

Rufus nailed the audience's nerves, launching his slow burn, stratified emotional buildup of "Go or Go Ahead," maintaining an impressive fidelity to feelings where little distinction is made between the pained pleasures of desire and longing, "I'll never know / What you've shown to other eyes." Each song's expressive delivery translated a deeply felt transition from sonic threshold to threshold. The melancholic "Pretty Things," with its defiant message "So what if I like pretty things?", "Vibrate," and "11:11" from the Want One CD interlaced its audible stylistics. Audiences received an energetic preview from Rufus' soon to be released Want Two CD with "Gay Messiah," evoking a huge response from the mostly gay crowd, as well as the reflective and beautiful piano solo "The Art Teacher," in musical deference to Philip Glass. "Matinee Idol" and "Foolish Love" from Rufus Wainwright's eponymously titled first album opened audience's emotional floodgates, as girls and gay men alike crammed front stage taking digital photos with their cell phones. Later, Rufus gifted the crowd with "I Don't Know What It Is," the driving musical delivery was itself a perpetual crescendo, gaining speed in train-like momentum causing us girls in the front row to wonder how a piano can dominate an entire room.

Continuing on the piano, Rufus went into "Dinner at Eight" with its lines of cathartic originality, "I'm going to break you down and see what you're really worth to me," demonstrating his ability to explore the human condition while translating it into a public experience. His encore included "Oh What A World" plus the irreverent and kinetic "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk." The evening ended with Rufus' earliest song "Liberty Cabbage," a dichotomy of love and fearful apprehension of the U.S., its lyrical components loaded with pictorial images that resonate with conductive energy. Coming down from my Rufus high, I'm reminded that his songs' profoundly personal territory are really directives to creatively liberate himself, the public, and especially his audience. from Cool Cleveland senior editor Tisha Nemeth
http://www.rufuswainwright.com

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