(Photo by D. Shiplacoff, Courtesy of Rogerbourland.com)

Bowie war auch da! Und als Zugabe gab es „Everytime we say goodbye“. Durchtrieben, gewieft, genial. Als Stargast kam Judys Tochter: nicht das nuschelnde Walross sondern dessen Schwester Lorna Luft. Schönen Dank auch an die New Yorker Blogger, die ihre Berichte sofort zu Netz brachten.

Gerade bei Reuters: “ Stars in the audience 45 years ago included Rock Hudson, Richard Burton, Julie Andrews and Henry Fonda. On Wednesday, Sarah Jessica Parker, Joel Gray, director John Waters, Gina Gershon and designer Patricia Fields were among the fans who gave Wainwright several standing ovations.
„I did feel a real connection to Judy Garland and did really commune with her,“ Wainwright said at the show’s end.
It was clear from the ecstatic response that the thousands who attended felt the same way.“

Und die New York times schreibt:
„What unfolded onstage was a tour de force of politically empowering performance art in which a proudly gay male performer paid homage to the original and longest-running gay icon in the crowded pantheon of pop divas. Accompanying Mr. Wainwright was a 36-piece orchestra conducted by Stephen Oremus playing the original 1961 arrangements transposed several notes lower to suit his voice.

The concert was a two-family affair, with the Garland clan represented by Lorna Luft, who arrived onstage late in the 2½-hour marathon to put her seal of approval on the project by joining Mr. Wainwright in a duet of „After You’ve Gone.“

Besides Rufus, the Wainwrights were represented by his sister Martha, who brought down the house with a whooping and swooping „Stormy Weather,“ and his mother, Kate McGarrigle, who accompanied him on piano during „Over the Rainbow,“ and in an encore of „Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye“ that’s not on the Garland album.“

“On good days I was Dorothy, on bad days I was the Wicked Witch. The interesting thing about it, too, is that I’ve always related to it mainly because I don’t relate much to Frank Sinatra. I appreciate Frank, but there are so many Frank Sinatra imitators, whether it’s Harry Connick Jr. or Michael Bublé—the kind of guys who [Snaps his fingers in quick succession] basically want to get laid. And there’s nobody being the flip side of that, which is the hungry, lonely, desperate, crazy-person singer [Laughs]. So I wanted to pick up that mantle and try to be a little less cool.”
(Source: Time Out NY)