Rufus Wainwright + Lucy Wainwright Roche - 9:30 Club (Washington, DC; Dec. 21, 2007)

It’s been nearly a decade since Rufus Wainwright joined the musical pantheon alongside father Loudon Wainwright III and mother Kate McGarrigle, both influential folk artists, with his self-titled, much-lauded solo release.  In the intervening years, this Canadian-American homme fatale crowded record shop “W” racks with five more albums.  Slightly less memorable was his 2005 performance of “Gay Messiah” at DC’s 9:30 Club, among other venues, which featured a staged crucifixion involving a sapphire gown, painted mask, and jeweled crown of thorns.

Rufus’s concert antics reached new heights the following year with sold-out covers of Judy Garland’s legendary 1961 performance at Carnegie Hall, a stunt released this month on CD: “Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall.” (The related DVD carries the edgier title “Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! Does Judy! Judy! Judy!") Jim Farber of the New York Daily News has judged the act “showbiz sacrilege.” Fans, for their part, came away from the performance perplexed but aware of having witnessed a footnote in operatic pop history.

And so it was with mild trepidation that this writer approached, through a frigid wind, the sold-out return of Rufus to the 9:30 Club last week.  It wasn’t until 2007 that the would-be icon’s stardust began once again to draw the kind of praise heaped on his debut. “Release the Stars” went gold over the summer in the United Kingdom, and I’ve taken a liking to Berlin-inspired tracks like “Sanssouci” and “Tiergarten.” Still, I had to wonder whether the show would amount to what Farber calls “a daft thing.”

The line to the door snakes a full two blocks, and scattered amongst the Rufus devotees are fans of the latest Wainwright clan member to cradle a six-string: Lucy Wainwright Roche.  Sporting a single EP, “8 Songs,” and just three lines in WIkipedia, 26-year-old Lucy is fresh off her first tour and hyper-concscious of the fact that the whooping, beer-clutching balconies have come not to see her but rather her half-brother.  Still, Lucy manages to acknowledge that fact while coaxing the audience into a sing-along that culminates in a simple, wrenching, five-syllable chorus: “it’s a sad • der sound.”

The younger Wainwright’s asides about driving through rural Kentucky and spotting a dead bear with rain pouring through her sunroof don’t really lead anywhere, but the front row patrons around me listen patiently and finally brand her “cute.” Lucy’s last pitch to a crowd thinking about shelling out good money for the EP?  She’ll personally sign your copy, and maybe spill tidbits about growing up with Rufus—like, oh, the times he had her play dead in order to practice singing arias.

One wonders what the tour manager is thinking during the better part of an hour it takes for the crowd’s enthusiasm to wane and the star attraction to take the stage.  But those front row patrons are quick to forgive, and an apologetic wave from Rufus, conservatively clad in a rainbow t=shirt, gray beanie and glistening scarf, draws a roar.  He first takes to the grand piano, belting out hits off “Release the Stars” that satiate the beer-clutching balconies and dispense quickly with that pinnacle album.  “I just talked to my mother,” he says, finishing a rendition of “Between My Legs” that leaves him breathless, “and she says she’s up to her crotch in snow.”

Listening to Rufus croon at the microphone in near-naked form, that is, absent the back-up instrumentals and latex that have shrouded the artist from fans in shows past, one is tempted to sympathize with Farber’s main criticism of his sound: his vocals.  “Wainwright elongates too many of the notes he sings, letting them sag in the middle,” writes Farber.  “The result drags down the momentum of these fleet pieces and turns his vocals into one long mewl.”

That may be true, but I feel an honesty lurking in those sagging notes, too.  Midway through a tune from his early years that triggers hesitation, Rufus simply lets the lyrics falter, lets loose with “I can’t believe this is really happening,” instead of feigning confidence.  That kind of vulnerability tends to inspire confidence among spectators rather than shake it.

Perhaps there are too many false starts, especially in bringing wide-eyed Lucy back on stage for a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” that opens badly, only to finish in neck-prickling grandeur.  But hesitation, even momentary confusion brought on by the misplacement of a set list or a fresh guitar seems somehow genuine, innately Wainwright, part of the show.

And what of the charge that all this stagecraft amounts to daftness?

“You’re simple and gorgeous” shouts a lovesick fan, parroting a line from the closing song, between swigs off the singer’s fourth water bottle.

The reply comes bullet-quick, airtight: “I am not simple.  I am gorgeous.”

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