New York: NME review - Mon 23rd Jul
New York: NME review
23 July 2001
Roxy Music / Rufus Wainwright : New York Madison Square Garden by Gavin McInnes of NME
First of all, Rufus Wainwright is a waste of time. Unless you are a magazine editor desperate for some gay content (both definitions of the word) or a promoter desperate for a major label payoff, ignore that self-obsessed douche bag. He is an insufferable bore that, despite selling no records at all, has somehow converted sucking shit into a big ball of vaudevillian piano hype.
Don't tell Rufus that however. I once tried to convince him being called the most overrated artist of all time had nothing to do with homophobia and he pinched the inside of my arm so hard I couldn't even laugh. So yeah, after half a Rufus song my friends and I went out to the bar to wait for Ferry and the boys and get a drunk going.
After settling back into our seats one hour after Rufus' intro, we became horrified by the shocking truth of this: stadium rock died for a reason. How can you possibly enjoy a show sitting in a chair? Ferry sang like he never took a day off. The rest of the band (sans Eno) bent all the classics into new songs with solos that made the baby boomers cry but we were sitting in fucking chairs dude.
The 40-50 year-olds had no problem screaming "whooo hooo!" and playing the air drums and yelling "you rawk" and swaying from side to side within the confines of two armrests but it just felt absurd. Like a Christopher Reeves birthday party full of wasted quads. We even saw two dudes square off and have a semi-fight SITTING DOWN! A sitting down fight between two sitting down dancers. What is this, 'Gregory's Girl'? Are we going to go 'lying down dancing' after this?
Unless you grew up in the era of stadiumrocksville I highly recommend not going to see any reunions. No matter how innovative and refreshing the band is, the Mom-and-Dad-got-a-babysitter-to-rock-out factor is such a cringefest it's just not worth it.