Missed Tunes

It was a busy week for live music in these parts, though I didn't see/hear any of it.

For two nights at Carnegie Hall, Rufus Wainwright, for the first time I've heard of, covered an entire concert, a legendary show by Judy Garland at the same venue. As the Times wrote:

It doesn't matter that Mr. Wainwright sounds nothing like Garland or that his voice...isn't half as good an instrument as Garland's. The spirit was there. At the very least, his loving song-by-song re-creation of Garland's brilliant concert of April 23, 1961, which became "Judy at Carnegie Hall," the most beloved of all prerock concert albums, was a fabulous stunt. Not even Madonna, pop music's ultimate provocateur, has attempted anything so ambitious.

I love several of Wainwright's songs -- I think people will be listening to "Foolish Love" a hundred years from now -- but I do tend to listen to him in bits and pieces, because his distinctly beautiful voice can be grating in large doses. Still, I would've liked to have been at Carnegie for one of those nights.

Then, last night, Celebrate Brooklyn, an annual series of summer concerts, kicked off one block from my apartment at the Prospect Park Bandshell with a show by Maceo Parker. And, um, Prince showed up. I was probably watching the fourth quarter of the Mavs-Heat game while he was shredding up the street. Lame.