As my fellow Gay Men of a Certain Age (and Edward Carney, honorary member of this group) know, the greatest CD ever is Judy Garland Live at Carnegie Hall. Go ahead, laugh it up! Ha, ha, ha, isn't that a typical? If this reflects your reaction, go to some other website before reading on. I'm sure there's something you'd find interesting on YouTube.
What a shame, then, that the very talented and often very interesting musician Rufus Wainwright attempted to re-do this by holding his own version of the Concert at Carnegie Hall, matching Ms. Garland's set list and, at times, re-creating her banter with the audience verbatim. The result was released on CD this past week and is, well, inconsistent. Some of the tracks are good, some are terrible, but all of them are suffused with what appears to be an ego the size of Dick Chaney and Lucille Ball combined. (Yes, I chose those two names intentionally.) My recommendation? Forget the overly constraining gender roles that our society has imposed on all of us, put on the original JG CD, and let your heart flutter and bleed.