I have suffered shipwreck across your dark brown eyes

Well. I'm going to be horribly dissatisfied with my write-up of this concert, though I suppose that's not really the point (I don't really know what is, actually). But quite simply, it was the best concert I have ever been to. I'm still reeling from how amazing Rufus is.

I cannot fathom how I decided six months ago that Rufus was okay but just another talented musician whom I would never fully appreciate or love. Part of this stemmed from a lukewarm reaction to Release The Stars, but the album has really grown on me and now I think it may be my favourite. Allow me to quickly rave about Between My Legs: it is a musical orgasm, with how it builds from the first verse into the chorus, and then the higher octave in the second verse before the chorus and that incredible outro with the eerie speaking and Phantom Of The Opera shoutout... fucking brilliant.

On with the night. Hamer Hall is such a lovely venue - tainted by memories of high school speech nights (though I did sing solo on that same stage, so yay for me), but the acoustics are so lovely, especially for someone like Rufus who relies on such wonderfully extravagant arrangements, which need to sound clear and choral, not cacophonous (I will admit I did feel it did get a little muddy on the very odd occasion, but it would have been a thousand times worse in an arena or something). And so nice and grand! Sometimes you want gritty and standing in a crowd, and sometimes you want fabulous and refined. Rufus is definitely the latter.

The opening act was Leena, with whom I didn't take much issue, except that the whole acoustic singer-songwriter thing feels so overdone nowadays. At least she made some efforts to veer away from primary chord usage, which I did appreciate. And she was quite pretty and sweet, even if her thank-yous to the audience (after each song) were a little over-enthused. But overall, she was fine.

And then, Rufus.

Setlist:

Release The Stars
Going To A Town
Sanssouci
Rules and Regulations
Matinee Idol
The Art Teacher
Tiergarten
Leaving For Paris No. 2
Between My Legs

-- intermission --

The Consort
Do I Disappoint You?
A Foggy Day (In London Town)
If Love Were All
Beautiful Child
Not Ready To Love
Slideshow
Macushla
14th Street

-- costume change --

I Don't Know What It Is
Poses
Get Happy
Gay Messiah

-- the sad end --

It was definitely a Release The Stars-centred setlist, and I spoke to someone who said he was bored in the first half (the cheek!) because he hadn't got the CD. But I was pleased that Want One - which used to be my favourite - got a few numbers in there, and even if I would have died to hear Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk, the set we got was very, very strong.

Selected highlights:
Release The Stars - Just gah. Maybe it was virginal syndrome, but it possibly could have been the highlight of the night. Disco balls descended for the chorus and cast pretty lights on the audience, and the atmosphere was magical. And Rufus was playing neither the guitar nor the piano and being so expressive with his hands and face and I don't think he reached that same degree of expressiveness anywhere else in the concert. I still get chills when I listen to this song now.

Sanssouci - Beautiful flutework. Rufus said something about Australians being 'that sweet master race' alluded to in this song, because we were all so attractive and nice or something. His banter was so cute, I swear. "I'm just trying to sound smart." I think it was before this song that he also explained the flag on the stage, which was the American flag replaced with black and white stripes (all the horrible things about America) and brooches instead of stars (for all the beautiful things). How fabulous.

Between My Legs - Just because it is sex. There is a Youtube competition to choose someone to do the spoken part for each concert, and we got these two guys who were quite funny. But they didn't get any special treatment, which I was very surprised about - they didn't have backstage passes at the end of the night! so I'm not so bummed that I didn't manage to audition after all (though I'm far too self-conscious to thusly expose myself on Youtube anyway).
Do I Disappoint You? - An eerie extended electric guitar solo led into a gloriously grand rendition of this.

Foggy Day/If Love Were All - Wow. Rufus absolutely soared over the beautiful piano in these classics (okay, admittedly, I only know the former from Michael Bublé (shame) and the latter from Rufus' Judy Garland tribute, but I'm sure they are classics) and it was breathtaking. You have to love how he can switch from huge orchestration to small and simple and be so beautiful in both.

Not Ready To Love/Slideshow - Slideshow is one of the big reasons I didn't really love RTS (mainly because I don't understand the chorus), but I loved it in concert with the band and the melodrama of it all. Rufus started out this segued duo by getting the audience to pretend it was in a musical where we were the leading man and he was the leading lady (of course) and he was about to jump off a cliff ("and believe me, by the end of this number I will be jumping off that cliff") and we had to stop him by shouting out "I love you!" (which of course I meant wholeheartedly) to which replied with the opening line of Not Ready To Love. Fun. It was slowed down considerably, I felt, which made it all the more haunting (same went for Leaving For Paris No. 2, which Rufus told us was written for Moulin Rouge but got rejected, "and that's why that movie was a flop." I loved.).

Beautiful Child - I don't really have any specifics to say but I remember it being particularly awesome.

Macushla - Rufus sang this solo, sans microphone, with just the brass - very old school, I suppose. It was so pure and beautiful, and the clarity of Rufus' voice - swoon.

14th Street - I'm sure the Corrs live in Geneva were the inspiration for this arrangement. There was an extended outro where Rufus and then the different sections of the band left one by one after a little solo, until the banjo was left - it was really fun. And then Rufus came back out on stage in a bathrobe, and put on lipstick and earrings. Love.

Get Ready - I love Get Ready. Yes, I may have discovered it on American Idol when Diana DeGarmo sang it, but I am still entitled to love it. And Rufus did this hilarious routine in costume as Judy Garland, and his band became his dancers - it was such incredible campy fun and I NEED TO REVISIT THIS ON DVD. The crowd loved it (except maybe for the lady sitting next to Vikki).

Well, I guess this was a rather long review which still doesn't encapsulate how much I loved the concert. But at least I finally got it done. Please, please, if you love Rufus' music, you have to experience him live. Mindblowingly awesome.

photos here - not mine but oh well.