Rufus et moi

Don't you love the way life turns out sometimes? I bought four tickets for a Rufus Wainwright gig and then decided I wasn't sure if I'd rather go or have the money. I put them on eBay at a 55% markup to see what would happen. I sold a pair, which was fine. Then a single ticket sold, leaving me with one. I hadn't really expected that but I happily went alone last night to sit in the unsold fourth seat at Sadler's Wells, staring at the three eBay buyers to my right. And ultimately, I was very glad indeed that no one had come with me because I would have been very boring and effusive on the tube home. As it is, I have distilled my self-obsessed gig review down to the following (and yes, even I am impressed that I can make a review of a concert about me):

I usually only admire perfection. I don't often respect performers who sing out of tune or mess up their lines, or who appear paranoid, irritating or unfunny. I like people who are the best at what they do. Rufus, however, is insecure, needy, melodramatic and over-emotional. He tells bad jokes and he makes mistakes. Sound familiar? In the pros column, he wears his heart on his sleeve, he's painfully honest about his own failings and he works extremely hard at life. Basically, if I was gay, Canadian, male and a smidgen more talented, I'd be Rufus Wainwright.

Last night's gig was a perfect Rufus showcase, warts and all - the first segment was a song cycle, an uninterrupted gallop through his new album, released last week, performed while he was wearing a diamond necklace and a fantastic black dress with huge feathered shoulders and a twenty foot train. The lyrics, mostly English, a few French, were direct insights into his existence - songs about his sister, about his parents and the cities he loves. Before the performance began, a guy had come onstage and told us that Rufus requested that there be no applause in between the songs - that the whole cycle was to be seen as one performance. We dutifully sat in silence while he hammered out extraordinarily complex piano accompaniments and blasted out his vocals, gloriously pitch perfect throughout. There were mistakes though, all the more glaring because of the formality provided by the costume and the lack of audience support. More frequently it was his playing that slipped, although a couple of times he couldn't remember his lyrics and just la-ed along until he found his jist. Despite the starched atmosphere, there was also a liberating sense of witnessing him as he would practice at home - he'd make an error and, without a moment's pause, return immediately to the beginning of the phrase and try again, sometimes so fast that I am sure many audience members didn't realise there'd been a slip-up.

But then in the second half, the big performance segment over, Rufus was back in jeans and a shirt, playing our old favourites, and still making errors, even in songs like Poses that he must've played thousands of times - but now there was no magical spell so he was free to display his irritation. And show it he did, clearly frustrated when he couldn't remember chords or lyrics, making growling noises or giving up altogether on the more complex sections and singing the piano part to the audience's loving amusement.

He's an amazing performer, a great pianist, and so talented that Elton John has called him our 'greatest living songwriter'. He could have played it safe last night, taken stock between each song, mixed up the old and the new - but instead he pushed himself to his limits, playing a two hour set without a backing band or written music, and (for the first half) without the comfort and support that a burst of applause brings at the end of a number. He also sang an incredibly moving song written by his late mother on one of the rare occasions where she was getting on well with his dad. We were all in tears by the end. The whole show was difficult and brave - and I admire him for not taking the easy road. It gives me strength to keep on ploughing my own furrow. If the ticket had sold on eBay, I wouldn't have gone last night, and I wouldn't have seen him. I wouldn't have known what I missed, and I would have had an early night, so it would have been fine - but like I said at the top, I do love the way life turns out sometimes. I think this is what psychologists call synthetic happiness. It rocks.