Silence for fans as Rufus dazzles

Singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright usually demands loud applause from audiences but fans at last night's Birmingham concert were under strict instructions not to clap during the first half of the show.

As an artist who has always been candid about his personal life, Wainwright has drawn upon his recent bereavement for his new album All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu, which charts the illness and death of his mother, folk singer Kate McGarrigle.

Playing piano solo all night, Wainwright performed the album's 12 songs in order as a "cycle" dressed in a black costume which made him look like a dark angel.

Rather than hearing the album broken by applause, fans were able to take in the personal outpouring in full but it was painful listening at times.

The haunting Who Are You New York and Martha, which draws upon his relationship with his singer sister, are among his finest work to date but there was no escaping the singer's obvious unhappiness in songs like the unsettling Zebulon.

Fresh from writing his opera Prima Donna, Wainwright is so accomplished a performer that he could pull off a set devoted to personal tragedy, which had the potential to alienate live audiences.

Yet the naked exposure meant weaker new offerings like his three reworkings of Shakespeare sonnets did not showcase his talents to the full.

The evening was not devoted entirely to grief as Wainwright returned after the interval, dressed casually this time, to draw upon his back catalogue.

In a much lighter mood, he trundled through favourites Nobody's Off The Hook and Vibrate.

He even cracked jokes about how he had narrowly avoided falling into the Brum canals as he went for his morning jog.

And he quipped that he would be back one day to buy a Pre-Raphaelite painting from the city art gallery.

"I'm coming back shopping," he joked. "But only if I stop writing operas as they are not a good way to make money."

Playing four of his all-time greats in a row, Dinner At Eight, Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk, Poses and Going To A Town, was the highlight of the night.

Overall, the performance was perhaps inevitably not as emphatic as his last date at the Symphony Hall in 2007, when he was backed by his full band.

The memory of his mother which had hung over the evening was further honoured by the fitting finale, a cover of her Walking Song, which was met with a standing ovation.

by Chris Leggett