As soon as I heard that John Cameron Mitchell--of Hedwig fame, but also the star of Larry Kramer's second AIDS play, the less successful one--I couldn't wait to score a ticket. If anyone could do justice to my rock lodestar, it would be he, who, like me, was an Army brat born in El Paso! As an added bonus, Mithcell would stage his tribute concert, "Queen Bitch," at the Perelman Center for the Performing Arts.
Alas, the year-old venue exceeded expectations, the performance barely met them. It began with a sly joke: an Aladdin Sane lightning bolt, which doubled as a microphone, carried to the stage by Amber Martin as if she were holding aloft the Statue of Liberty's torch. I knew we were in for an evening of "deep cuts" when the very tight band struck up "Station to Station," a dimly recalled album title cut, as Mitchell stomped onto the stage with a WWII parachute billowing behind a costume that seemed more transgender Cleopatra than "straight faggot" Bowie (Mitchell's own politically incorrect, if apt description of him and Lou Reed).
As long as Mitchell stuck to Bowie's campier numbers ("Time," "Sweet Thing/Candidate" & "Queen Bitch") he did fine. His knowledgeable and amusing (if occasionally self-aggrandizing) commentary almost compensated for the inadequacy of his high-range vocals, especially on the seminal "Rock 'n Roll Suicide," surely the best album-closer ever.
But he seriously miscalculated in giving Martin "Ziggy Stardust" to cover after her equally "fierce" and grating performance of "Fame" although the audience cheered both. Perhaps I'm too much of a purist or maybe Mitchell's generous cult outnumbered Bowie's. In any case, her interludes gave his voice and his slithering but aging body--which repeatedly engaged band members in the master's queer-baiting sexual pantomimes--a chance to rest, as did his continued and unnecessary interactions with a ten-year old Bowie fan in a box seat with his mother.
All criticism aside, Mitchell's superb and stunningly relevant performance of "I'm Afraid of Americans"proved that he really gets Bowie and his timelessness. As an aficionado of Bowie's early recordings, Mitchell no doubt recognizes the irony of making one of the Thin White Duke's lesser appreciated works--a late-career collab with Trent Reznor--his own for a night.
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