Like Jack and Algy, the co-conspirators of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright is an elegant bachelor whose jaded discontent initially conceals a gift for dazzling effects. Things may get chaotic for a while, but it all turns out for the best. Well, usually: Wainwright’s albums tirelessly raise surreal orchestral backdrops and outbursts, which can provide effective contrast to his glum voice and keyboards, as he trudges and stalks, vowing not to led the gaudy temptations of this world lead him astray once more. But they do, and, especially on stage, his appetite for mischief soon has him prancing in the moonlight again (see many performances preserved on Youtube, for instance).
These days, Rufus Wainwright often plays the same shows as The Magic Numbers, a quartet of chubby, chirpy, hippie-looking young Brits: two beardos and their little sisters, sometimes compared to The Mamas And The Papas. Like Wainwright, The Magic Numbers have been accused of letting their record collections go to their heads, getting lost in retro. And it’s true that there’s an obsessive quality to their albums, but they’re all about finding, recognizing their own voices, gradually stacking and climbing on top of all their stuff.
On their self-titled 2005 debut, and the following year’s Those The Brokes (The U.S. release, in July 2007, drops one song and adds two, including a hidden track), The Magic Numbers deliberately push and pull and pack poppy sounds, associated with commercial practicalities, into more expressive, somewhat uncool shapes. Main songwriter and guitarist Romeo Stodart, who has said he’s sorting out the memories and aftermath of an eight-year relationship, resorts to shamelessly, expertly quirky lyrics, and the fluid punctuation of what sounds like a hollow-bodied Gibson, to lead through moments of insight and confusion, overviews and quick edits. Their songs seem quieter and tighter than Rufus’s moody epics, but just as dynamic. Michelle Stodart’s bass is as incisive as her brother’s guitar, and “Take Me Or Leave Me,” which she wrote and sings lead on, develops a tension through an extended moment of confrontation: maybe it’s better not to force a resolution, whether you get taken or left (self-pity is so much safer, and at least as seductive). Angela Gannon sings “Undecided” so decisively; she could probably nail it even without her brother Sean’s drums.
The same degree of commitment to romantic complexity, and of singing about and to a real (enough) person, also gives muscle tone to Rufus Wainwright’s latest programme, Release The Stars. He declares he’s “Not Ready To Love,” not because he’s scared, but because he’s determined to wait until he knows he can do you right. He’s convincing, the more so because he’s not too consistently noble: in the very next song, “Slideshow, “ he’s blustering, trying to get somebody to honor a bribe. “Leaving For Paris” brushes by, more quietly than usual, but certain notes indelibly hint at the impossible glories we’re all missing by letting him go. The title track is a bluesy skyscraper sway through and past the grand shadows of “old Hollywood,” and a cry for (almost of) liberation, though not without a last glance back over his shoulder, at the studio, as solid as ever, waiting for him to come back, for the next scene. Don Allred
Rufus Wainwright, with special guests The Magic Numbers, will perform at Lifestyle Communities Pavilion on Thursday, August 23. Gates open at 6:30. Tickets are $37.00 and $22.00. For more information, please call 614-358-7625 Ext. 101, or http://www.promowestlive.com
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