Nearly thirty-seven years after her death, Judy Garland remains a preeminent gay icon. Her failed relationships, nagging self-doubt, and battle with substance abuse are widely known aspects of her life that many gay men can identify with, while her live performances reflect an honesty and freedom which is appealing to anyone who has spent time hiding their own emotions.

Gay culture, even today, can't escape Garland's presence. The Stonewall riots have often been attributed, probably erroneously, to the anger and grief felt by many mourners at Garland's funeral that day. And while there remains some uncertainty over the origin of the phrase "Friend of Dorothy," there's no doubt that its popularity grew from association with Garland's most well-known role.

Garland's 1961 concert at Carnegie Hall is a landmark in her career. Two years earlier, she had been advised to retire from performing after a bout with hepatitis, but instead undertook a series of concerts in Europe and America that reestablished her reputation as an amazing entertainer. The Carnegie Hall show has been called "the greatest evening in show-business history." The live recording of that concert spent more than a year on the Billboard charts and won several Grammys, including Album of the Year.

Earlier this year, when openly gay singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright announced his plan to perform at Carnegie Hall and play the same songs that Garland had sung, the fan base immediately began buzzing. Would he be imitating her? The thought seemed laughable. Could he match Garland 's appeal and charisma? Or was this all an ego trip a la Florence Foster Jenkins, the tone-deaf society matron who had sold out Carnegie Hall in 1944? Regardless, the first concert quickly sold out and a second one was added. June 14-15 was marked down on the calendar as "Gay Woodstock."

In recent years, Wainwright had become a gay icon in his own right. Since 1998 he had released several highly regarded albums, each containing songs that unabashedly declared his attraction to other men. Following treatment for substance abuse in 2002, he released Want One and Want Two, a pair of weird, opulent, and wonderful albums that traverse subjects including addiction, relationships, and the difficulties of success.

Wednesday night's show erased the early doubts and rewarded fans of both performers. The main setlist was the same as the album, with the addition of an appropriate encore. Although Wainwright usually plays piano and guitar during his shows, at this concert he restricted himself to vocals, leaving the backing to the 40-piece orchestra conducted by Broadway veteran Stephen Oremus.

A typical Rufus Wainwright concert crowd is youngish and about two-thirds male. This show brought out an audience that skewed older, with a large number of fans, male and female, who were probably being exposed to Wainwright for the first time. They surely came away impressed.

For the first few songs, Wainwright seemed nervous and overly careful. As the initial jitters wore off and the warm audience reception took hold, he became more comfortable, and told of his childhood playacting as both Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West.

He wisely did not try to imitate Garland's singing style, but wrapped his own voice around the familiar songs. Still, he included plenty of references recognizable to those familiar with the recording ("I forgot the goldarned words") and managed to avoid coming off as either slavishly imitative or ironically mocking while doing so. The effect instead was that of a secret shared between performer and audience.

Most of the songs were transposed into a more comfortable key, and some tempos were adjusted slightly to fit his vocal style, which favors ballads more than swinging, uptempo numbers. The aching "How Long Has This Been Going On?" was a highlight of the first set.

The second half of the show featured several guests, with sister Martha Wainwright taking the spotlight for an overly mannered "Stormy Weather," mother Kate McGarrigle playing piano behind Rufus on "Over the Rainbow," and Garland 's daughter Lorna Luft dueting with him on "After You've Gone."

"Chicago," the last song on the album, always seemed like an anticlimactic finish following the triple punch of "Over the Rainbow," "Swanee," and "After You've Gone." On this night, Wainwright returned to the stage to perform "Get Happy" followed by the only non-Garland song of the evening, Cole Porter's "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye," again with McGarrigle on the piano. As the last note faded, there was a split-second of pure silence as the audience paused to drink in the moment before erupting into thunderous applause.

Popular tastes in music have changed too much since 1961 for these concerts (filmed for likely future release) to have the impact that the original album did. This week will, in the end, be a minor blip in what is likely to be Wainwright's long career. But everyone in attendance will look back on a blissful evening spent in two simultaneous worlds--with Judy on stage, loved by her fans and loving them back, and communing with Rufus, as he paid touching tribute to a singer and songwriters whose music he has loved since he was a child.