Ryman Security Is the New Military Police, or, Rufus Wainwright In Nashville
We (Ashley, Josh, and your faithful narrator) went to Nashville to see Rufus Wainwright on Tuesday night. The show was at the Ryman Auditorium, best known for being the home of the Grand Old Opry from the mid forties to the mid seventies. Something I didn't know until yesterday was that it was originally a house of worship; you can really tell, what with the stained glass windows and the pews. Yes, I said pews.
We started our adventure by grabbing a late lunch, and then by everyone ignoring me in the car. Seriously, car trips are not the time to tune me out. If you plug in your earphones or settle into a book, I WILL run us off the road in retaliation. I also stated this was the last time I am driving anyone anywhere. Someone else has got to step up to the plate and drive; by the time we make it where we're going I'm always pissed, my feet are swollen, and I've stopped to pee at least three times. This is only when I go to Wal-Mart; I'm not actually talking about when I leave town.
There was a point where Ashley got Metatron - the ficticious Dogma version of the angel as played by Alan Rickman - and Megatron mixed up. Yes, that Megatron. The robot. In disguise. There was hysterical laughter, and, on the way home, talk of Alan Rickman as a robot, and an evil Transformer with giant cream-colored wings, and impregnation by such. The conversation basically went like this. I'm paraphrasing out my ass here:
Me: I HATE SNAPE WTF?
Josh: INORITE DIE SNAPE DIE
Me: AS SOMEONE AWESOME ONCE SAID, THE WORLD ISN'T SPLIT INTO GOOD PEOPLE AND DEATH EATERS
Ashley: Yeah, but Alan Rickman is hot. Behold the Megatron!
Me: Behold the Megatron.
Me: Behold the MEGATRON?!
Front Seat Passengers: LOLOLOL @ ASHLEY
I should say here that the map was wrong. So wrong. Thirty-minutes-in-traffic wrong. There's this rule that I like to call the Ashleigh Rule of Driving: it's not a trip with me unless we turn around at least once. If we make it home and back without turning around, something terrible is going to happen, and you should grab a four-leaf clover, throw some salt over your shoulder, and put on your lucky socks. All at once.
Eventually we made it to Nashville and battled downtown parking. I hate parking. I hate parking so much that I might offer myself up to the government as an experimental subject in the study of artificial wings. I mean, I hate driving too. This stems from being the oldest grandchild and being the first to get a learner's permit - my nearest cousin is three years younger than me. The novelty of driving wears off quickly when you're making a frantic dash to the grocery store in your slippers because your grandmother does not make a grocery list and instead wings it. My hatred for parking stems from that, and that it's damn near impossible to parallel park at six o'clock in the evening on a downtown street in Nashville.
But no matter! We parked in the public library lot, and it was very inexpensive, as parking goes. 80% of my stress averted.
Walking into the Ryman is a little surreal. Going in, you're thinking, oh, the history. Everyone from Elvis to James Brown to Oasis have played there; scenes from Coal Miner's Daughter were filmed there, among others. But really? It's a bizarre venue. It's smaller than you realize when you look at the seating chart; we were in row M and could have brained the horn section with a rock. ...not that I wanted to brain the horn section or anything.
Also, let me repeat myself: you're sitting on pews. PEWS. CHURCH PEWS. By the time the show ends, you think your ass prints are permanently fixed into the wood, and you feel guilty for sitting your soda cup on the floor beside you, and the ushers have come to tell the guy in front of you at least three times to put away his cell phone even though it's not actually making noise... in short, the Ryman is overrated.
Skipping ahead a little... or a lot, or something, the first opener was A Fine Frenzy, and that chick put every fucking emo kid on the block to shame. I also hate solo artists masquerading as bands, but we're not going there today. The music was so depressing I expected her to whip out a sharp instrument and threaten to hurt herself while wearing a black hoodie on MySpace. I christened this act Girl Coldplay, because you know I can never leave anything with its original name. Naturally, I wasn't surprised to surf to the A Fine Frenzy MySpace page and learn that she's inspired by Coldplay and Bright Eyes. I honestly think that's worthy of the "I'm Gay - I'm Catholic - I Shit In The Woods" icon that floats around ONTD.
Next opener was Neko Case. Because I'm an asshole, I'm proud that I was pronouncing her name right and none of the rest of my merry band of weirdos could. I liked her a lot. Josh warmed up to her. Ashley didn't like it at all. There were banjos. I LOVE BANJOS. She reminded me of a less drunk, more inspired female Langhorne Slim. She did not sound like Coldplay or an emo MySpace kid, and that's about all I have to say about that. We went out for intermission and Josh bought one of A Fine Frenzy's CD and had Girl Coldplay sign it.
We returned to our seats; this is where I talk about the guys in front of us. At a show with someone like Rufus, or Scissor Sisters for that matter, you fully expect about 75% of the audience to be gay. The couple in front of us were... special. One of them was clearly not into Rufus, and completely bored. His boyfriend could only have been more into Rufus if they were conjoined twins and shared a kidney. When the show started and Rufus came onstage he damn near wet his pants with joy and glee. He sort of looked like The Australian Phil Collins, my former next-door neighbor who liked to have bad sex and ruin songs I really loved, except a head shorter and filled with 100% more gay.
Rufus came out in this... God, Rufus, what does your costumer say when you ask him or her for a suit in red, white, and blue striped patches, covered with shiny brooches? The stage backdrop was a black-and-white American flag (which represented the "bad things about America... like foreign policy and racism") with glittering button-brooch type displays instead of stars - there were flowers and butterflies and a dragonfly! which made me happy because I had already thought about getting a dragonfly tattoo because of "Grey Gardens," but anyway. They represented the great things about our country, per Rufus.
His Very Excited Gayness in front of me turned at some point, noticed me singing along, and sang to me intermittently throughout the rest of the show. I am not kidding. He also made Doctor Evil motions at me and swooned over Scissor Sisters playing in Nashville last October and how luscious Babydaddy is. We are totally not going to talk about what he did during "Gay Messiah."
Moving on. The setlist featured all of Release the Stars, most of them before intermission. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but the new version of "Leaving For Paris" is frightening. The original version - before the rewrite, before RtS, when he was only playing it live - ended on a hopeful note, like, fuck yeah I'm leaving for Paris, and I don't want to see you anymore, but I'm okay with that and I hope you get okay with that too. The RtS version and the new live version? SCARY AS FUCK. It was a little like a Tim Burton movie - like, you see your descent into hell and you know it can only get worse from here, but you know you're going to be roasting your brains over it a while.
He came back after intermission in his lederhosen. All was well there. He finished up the rest of RtS, did some old favorites, a couple of Judy Garland tunes, and an Irish folk song without mics or amplifiers. Pretty awesome, save the drunks that always choose to yell at intense moments.
Encore: he came out in his bathrobe, of course, and eventually revealed his tux-leotard, put on some lipstick, jewelry, and lipsynched with his band to "Get Happy." ...yeah, it's about like it sounds. His sister Lucy came out to duet with him on "Hallelujah." I like Lucy. She is a vast improvement over his other sister; sorry, Martha, you get on my fucking nerves.
He closed with "Gay Messiah." I don't know about anyone else, but "Release the Stars" as an opener and "Gay Messiah" as a closer just does not scream "great setlist" to me. I think there's an art to setlist structure, and sadly, I don't think Rufus and his musical director have mastered it. It was a pretty awesome show. I felt a bit nostalgic for the setlist from the show I went to in 2005, but I'm also pretty much resigned to never hearing four of my five favorite Rufus songs live (I can't pick just one). As Josh similarly noted that evening, liking off-the-beaten-path tracks or everyone's least favorite record is the curse of my eardrums.
End result: It was much easier to get out of town than it was to get into it. Fucking incorrect maps.
On the way out of the parking lot we realized we were behind the gay guys in front of us; they had an Ohio license plate. If you happen to meet a gay couple from Ohio who are a mixed love-Rufus/hate-Rufus pair, don't let them leave until I get there.
Release the Stars
Going to a Town
Sanssouci
Rules & Regulations
Tulsa
The Art Teacher
Tiergarten
Leaving For Paris
Between My Legs
intermission
Harvester of Hearts
Do I Disappoint You?
A Foggy Day
If Love Were All
Nobody's Off the Hook
Beautiful Child
Not Ready to Love
Slideshow
Macushla
14th Street
I Don't Know What It Is
Pretty Things
Hallelujah
Get Happy
Gay Messiah
We started our adventure by grabbing a late lunch, and then by everyone ignoring me in the car. Seriously, car trips are not the time to tune me out. If you plug in your earphones or settle into a book, I WILL run us off the road in retaliation. I also stated this was the last time I am driving anyone anywhere. Someone else has got to step up to the plate and drive; by the time we make it where we're going I'm always pissed, my feet are swollen, and I've stopped to pee at least three times. This is only when I go to Wal-Mart; I'm not actually talking about when I leave town.
There was a point where Ashley got Metatron - the ficticious Dogma version of the angel as played by Alan Rickman - and Megatron mixed up. Yes, that Megatron. The robot. In disguise. There was hysterical laughter, and, on the way home, talk of Alan Rickman as a robot, and an evil Transformer with giant cream-colored wings, and impregnation by such. The conversation basically went like this. I'm paraphrasing out my ass here:
Me: I HATE SNAPE WTF?
Josh: INORITE DIE SNAPE DIE
Me: AS SOMEONE AWESOME ONCE SAID, THE WORLD ISN'T SPLIT INTO GOOD PEOPLE AND DEATH EATERS
Ashley: Yeah, but Alan Rickman is hot. Behold the Megatron!
Me: Behold the Megatron.
Me: Behold the MEGATRON?!
Front Seat Passengers: LOLOLOL @ ASHLEY
I should say here that the map was wrong. So wrong. Thirty-minutes-in-traffic wrong. There's this rule that I like to call the Ashleigh Rule of Driving: it's not a trip with me unless we turn around at least once. If we make it home and back without turning around, something terrible is going to happen, and you should grab a four-leaf clover, throw some salt over your shoulder, and put on your lucky socks. All at once.
Eventually we made it to Nashville and battled downtown parking. I hate parking. I hate parking so much that I might offer myself up to the government as an experimental subject in the study of artificial wings. I mean, I hate driving too. This stems from being the oldest grandchild and being the first to get a learner's permit - my nearest cousin is three years younger than me. The novelty of driving wears off quickly when you're making a frantic dash to the grocery store in your slippers because your grandmother does not make a grocery list and instead wings it. My hatred for parking stems from that, and that it's damn near impossible to parallel park at six o'clock in the evening on a downtown street in Nashville.
But no matter! We parked in the public library lot, and it was very inexpensive, as parking goes. 80% of my stress averted.
Walking into the Ryman is a little surreal. Going in, you're thinking, oh, the history. Everyone from Elvis to James Brown to Oasis have played there; scenes from Coal Miner's Daughter were filmed there, among others. But really? It's a bizarre venue. It's smaller than you realize when you look at the seating chart; we were in row M and could have brained the horn section with a rock. ...not that I wanted to brain the horn section or anything.
Also, let me repeat myself: you're sitting on pews. PEWS. CHURCH PEWS. By the time the show ends, you think your ass prints are permanently fixed into the wood, and you feel guilty for sitting your soda cup on the floor beside you, and the ushers have come to tell the guy in front of you at least three times to put away his cell phone even though it's not actually making noise... in short, the Ryman is overrated.
Skipping ahead a little... or a lot, or something, the first opener was A Fine Frenzy, and that chick put every fucking emo kid on the block to shame. I also hate solo artists masquerading as bands, but we're not going there today. The music was so depressing I expected her to whip out a sharp instrument and threaten to hurt herself while wearing a black hoodie on MySpace. I christened this act Girl Coldplay, because you know I can never leave anything with its original name. Naturally, I wasn't surprised to surf to the A Fine Frenzy MySpace page and learn that she's inspired by Coldplay and Bright Eyes. I honestly think that's worthy of the "I'm Gay - I'm Catholic - I Shit In The Woods" icon that floats around ONTD.
Next opener was Neko Case. Because I'm an asshole, I'm proud that I was pronouncing her name right and none of the rest of my merry band of weirdos could. I liked her a lot. Josh warmed up to her. Ashley didn't like it at all. There were banjos. I LOVE BANJOS. She reminded me of a less drunk, more inspired female Langhorne Slim. She did not sound like Coldplay or an emo MySpace kid, and that's about all I have to say about that. We went out for intermission and Josh bought one of A Fine Frenzy's CD and had Girl Coldplay sign it.
We returned to our seats; this is where I talk about the guys in front of us. At a show with someone like Rufus, or Scissor Sisters for that matter, you fully expect about 75% of the audience to be gay. The couple in front of us were... special. One of them was clearly not into Rufus, and completely bored. His boyfriend could only have been more into Rufus if they were conjoined twins and shared a kidney. When the show started and Rufus came onstage he damn near wet his pants with joy and glee. He sort of looked like The Australian Phil Collins, my former next-door neighbor who liked to have bad sex and ruin songs I really loved, except a head shorter and filled with 100% more gay.
Rufus came out in this... God, Rufus, what does your costumer say when you ask him or her for a suit in red, white, and blue striped patches, covered with shiny brooches? The stage backdrop was a black-and-white American flag (which represented the "bad things about America... like foreign policy and racism") with glittering button-brooch type displays instead of stars - there were flowers and butterflies and a dragonfly! which made me happy because I had already thought about getting a dragonfly tattoo because of "Grey Gardens," but anyway. They represented the great things about our country, per Rufus.
His Very Excited Gayness in front of me turned at some point, noticed me singing along, and sang to me intermittently throughout the rest of the show. I am not kidding. He also made Doctor Evil motions at me and swooned over Scissor Sisters playing in Nashville last October and how luscious Babydaddy is. We are totally not going to talk about what he did during "Gay Messiah."
Moving on. The setlist featured all of Release the Stars, most of them before intermission. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but the new version of "Leaving For Paris" is frightening. The original version - before the rewrite, before RtS, when he was only playing it live - ended on a hopeful note, like, fuck yeah I'm leaving for Paris, and I don't want to see you anymore, but I'm okay with that and I hope you get okay with that too. The RtS version and the new live version? SCARY AS FUCK. It was a little like a Tim Burton movie - like, you see your descent into hell and you know it can only get worse from here, but you know you're going to be roasting your brains over it a while.
He came back after intermission in his lederhosen. All was well there. He finished up the rest of RtS, did some old favorites, a couple of Judy Garland tunes, and an Irish folk song without mics or amplifiers. Pretty awesome, save the drunks that always choose to yell at intense moments.
Encore: he came out in his bathrobe, of course, and eventually revealed his tux-leotard, put on some lipstick, jewelry, and lipsynched with his band to "Get Happy." ...yeah, it's about like it sounds. His sister Lucy came out to duet with him on "Hallelujah." I like Lucy. She is a vast improvement over his other sister; sorry, Martha, you get on my fucking nerves.
He closed with "Gay Messiah." I don't know about anyone else, but "Release the Stars" as an opener and "Gay Messiah" as a closer just does not scream "great setlist" to me. I think there's an art to setlist structure, and sadly, I don't think Rufus and his musical director have mastered it. It was a pretty awesome show. I felt a bit nostalgic for the setlist from the show I went to in 2005, but I'm also pretty much resigned to never hearing four of my five favorite Rufus songs live (I can't pick just one). As Josh similarly noted that evening, liking off-the-beaten-path tracks or everyone's least favorite record is the curse of my eardrums.
End result: It was much easier to get out of town than it was to get into it. Fucking incorrect maps.
On the way out of the parking lot we realized we were behind the gay guys in front of us; they had an Ohio license plate. If you happen to meet a gay couple from Ohio who are a mixed love-Rufus/hate-Rufus pair, don't let them leave until I get there.
Release the Stars
Going to a Town
Sanssouci
Rules & Regulations
Tulsa
The Art Teacher
Tiergarten
Leaving For Paris
Between My Legs
intermission
Harvester of Hearts
Do I Disappoint You?
A Foggy Day
If Love Were All
Nobody's Off the Hook
Beautiful Child
Not Ready to Love
Slideshow
Macushla
14th Street
I Don't Know What It Is
Pretty Things
Hallelujah
Get Happy
Gay Messiah