Rufus Wainwright- All These Poses Tour

Rufus Wainwright is celebrating the 20th anniversary of his debut album with the All These Poses tour, where he plays songs from his first two albums. Nicola and Belinda joined me for tonight's show at the Melbourne Recital Centre, which is a dream venue acoustically to hear Rufus sing in. Opening the evening was one of his band members, Rachel Eckroth, who played a half hour set of atmospheric songs on keyboard while also utilising samples, loops and vocal effects.

Rufus is touring with a five piece band and they started the evening with his very first single "April Fools" (I remember when that video came out in 1998). The show was broken up into two parts, with the first half focused on songs from his eponymous debut album. Rufus was dressed in a top hat and jacket but took those off a few songs in to reveal a gold sequin tank top with his high-waisted striped pants and suspenders. He played many of my favorites off the album, including "Barcelona," "Danny Boy," "Millbrook," "Foolish Love," "In My Arms" and "Beauty Mark," which is about his mother Kate McGarrigle. He had a few funny stories to tell about his mom, including that Joni Mitchell was banned in their household. This didn't stop him from participating in her recent 75th birthday tribute concert and singing for us her song "Both Sides, Now," which was absolutely amazing and brought some of the audience to their feet after it. He also played his latest single, "Sword Of Damocles," which was inspired by Donald Trump.

After a brief intermission the show continued, with the second half focused on songs from Rufus' second album Poses. He came out in a very decorative and heavy jacket and started with "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk." The set list balanced between the more upbeat tracks such as "California," "Grey Gardens" and "Shadows" and slower ballads like "Poses," "One Man Guy," "The Tower Of Learning" and "In A Graveyard," which he performed solo on piano to finish the set.

For the encore Rufus came back out in a red bomber jacket and played "Imaginary Love" off his debut album, the emotional "Going To A Town" off Release The Stars (my very favorite song of his), and then finished the night with The Beatles' "Across The Universe" accompanied by a choir of audience members. This was such an amazing show and a privilege to get to hear his first two albums live in person after listening to them so many times over the years.

Here's the video for "Sword Of Damocles"