VIDEO – For his Paris stop on March 30, the singer will invite Calogero and Catherine Deneuve on stage. A way to show its French roots.
From our special correspondent in Copenhagen,
With his shaggy beard and messy hair, Rufus Wainwright looks like he’s straight out of a Jack Kerouac novel – apart, of course, from the red shoes and the surprisingly printed white jacket he sports on stage. This adventurous bard with romantic verve has conquered a large audience since his eponymous debut album released in 1998 with a series of chiselled piano-pop hits in the line of Queen or David Bowie.
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While on a European tour, the American-Canadian singer and pianist made a stopover in Paris to play the songs of Unfollow the Rules (don’t follow the rules), its “brand new album”as he says with a smile, since it was actually born two years ago, but its promotion was postponed by confinement.
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Resumption of Hallelujah de Leonard Cohen
On stage, Rufus Wainwright perfectly masters his subject. He knows how to give chills to the public with, for example, his sumptuous cover of Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, as he knows how to lighten the mood at times with a dose of self-mockery, like when he starts clowning around in the middle of his hit What a Beautiful Day.
Finally, it is a small tradition for him to conclude each show with a completely crazy secret encore. This opera lover – he composed two of them -, “but also musical comedy”, spent his childhood in Montreal, hence his fluency in French and, he says, a particular affection for the song of Starmania Ziggy, signed by the Canadian Luc Plamondon, which he will perform on the stage of the Grand Rex in Paris, where he also invited Calogero and Catherine Deneuve.
Grand Rex (Paris 2e), on Wednesday, March 30.