Rufus!

Last night I took my mum to see Rufus Wainwright at the Palais Theatre in St Kilda.

It was fabulous - for two hours he held the audience in the palm of his hand, enraptured, as the music tumbled forth from a single grand piano and what seemed to be the depths of his soul. Yes, this may seem a little melodramatic, but when a musician glides funeareally onto the stage in a feather-trimmed Victorian gown, and requests that the audience refrain from any kind of applause during his first, one-hour, set, you get a sense that things might start to veer toward the theatrical ...

Throughout the evening, the audience was taken through a sequence of sad, yet hopeful, stories as the theatre filled with an almost overwhelming sense of beautiful melancholy. Wainwright's vocal range, songwriting skills and passionate piano expression captured more than a little attention .... Boy, can that chap sing!