Special note — I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, right after Conchita’s Ybbs concert. Then it sat and sat and sat. Because, as a writer, sometimes I have to come back to what I write a while later — just so I can look at it again with a little bit of distance and see if what I think I saw, I actually did.
Now, on this, I don’t know if my perception of what was going on in Conchita’s head at the moment the jacket opened is remotely the truth. (I read her body language, her facial expressions, and the ‘feeling’ I get from her — I’m not psychic).
But I do know I sometimes wish she really understood how every tiny mistake she makes, or every not-meant-to-happen thing that goes on on stage and the way she always handles it in such a lovely way, just makes people adore her even more.
But anyway,…my thoughts…..take them with a grain of salt.
April 1st, 2017 — Conchita performs in Ybbs
Austrian diva extraordinaire Conchita Wurst gave a concert in Ybbs an der Donau last night. A teeny tiny market town of just over 5,000 people in the middle of…well, probably nowhere you would ever normally go.
When tickets were released for the event, I toyed with the idea of going. But, the city of Bangkok and it’s 13 million people being my ‘comfort zone’, towns like Ybbs are not often my thing. Particularly because they’re usually a pain in the ass to get to.
So, I decided to give this one a miss. Especially as I’d seen Conchita in concert in Linz just a couple of weeks before.
And thus, my laziness and squeamishness about going to little Ybbs was why I missed Conchita, the jacket, the (almost) nipple, the singing and that adorable grin.
Mountains, molehills…you get the gist
And yes, before I go on, I will say I am well aware I’m making a mountain out of a mole hill here.
A mole hill of a teeny tiny moment on stage when a button on a jacket came undone, and Austria’s most glamorous diva tried her best not to expose a nipple to the however many hundreds of people watching her from the audience while she sang.
Hundreds of people who were probably praying said nipple would fight its way free, and they could head off home after the concert feeling as happy as they’d been in months.
Me?
Nipple. No nipple. I really couldn’t care less.
Because my interest in Conchita has always been more a fascination about the personality of the person beneath the make up and wig, than it has been about any supposed ‘sexuality’ she exudes.
And, when it comes to that person’s personality, it’s the enigma and paradox of her/him I find so interesting. An enigma and a paradox that came into play at Ybbs.
Enigmas and paradoxes
Because she is someone who, as much as I have studied hundreds of hours of video over the last three years in an attempt to get to know her in detail, and as much as I do sometimes know how she’s feeling, most of the time she is still as hard a person to figure out as anyone I’ve ever met.
Why?
The enigma.
The ever-shifting personality that makes her difficult to figure out, and then hold onto. Because, as fast as I do, she has already changed and is now someone else.
Because the enigma of Conchita Wurst is tied up in the type of person who, on one hand, will pose half naked for a photograph taken with hairy chest on show for the whole world to see.
Or flaunt half of what she has for a Life Ball promotion photo.
(And yes, it and she are gorgeous).
Yet, on the other, it usually seems, if the nipples are coming out, they’re coming out on her terms. Or not at all.
Not on her terms
Then, of course, there are the missteps. Like in Ybbs last night, and that faulty button hole.
And then this thoroughly gorgeous person, the owner of one of the most knock-out bodies on the planet, is so thrown by a soon-to-be exposed nipple on a rapidly opening jacket, the first half of that song seemed to be all about getting to the musical interlude so she could grab the jacket, fumble with the button and apologize to her audience while she was doing it. And then, of course, flash us that adorable grin in contrition.
And me? I’m f*cking fascinated by all of that.
Because I’m fascinated by someone who, by rights, with her/his incredible beauty and phenomenal talent, should be the most self-confident, most devil-may-care, most my-jacket-came-open-my-nipple-almost-popped-out-and-Jesus-Chris-I’m-HOTTER-than-Brad-Pitt-and-Angelina-Jolie-rolled-into-one-anyway-so-deal-with-it type of person you could ever possibly meet.
Because she really is that magnificent.
But instead she’s this…this person who sometimes knows she is the best thing that’s come out of Austria in 200 years.
Then other times has so much self doubt she internally berates herself for that tiny mistake she made on one song that nobody really noticed except a terrifyingly obsessed fan in the back row, and Conchita herself. Or clings onto a jacket like it’s about to take wings and fly away. Because, in her own mind, there is still that voice telling her she will never be quite good enough.
And, when I see that, part of me wants to hug her until she begs me to stop.
And the other part of me wants to force her to listen and listen and listen until my insistence that she is, by far, better than most of the people on the planet finally gets through to her, and she can put every thought she has ever had out of her head about ‘lacking’.
Because Conchita is, and always will be, better than just about everyone I have ever met.
That jacket came unbuttoned and 500 fans just lost the ability to exhale
So my lovely Conchita, you of the it’s-my-hairy-chest-and-I’ll-flaunt-it-as-much-as-I-want-to-but-heaven-forbid-there’s-a-nip-slip issue — the next time you have a jacket problem, and I’m sure you will, I say pretend it didn’t happen.
Because clutching at it mid-song risks putting you off your game.
Besides, Miley Cyrus, who really does know she is hot shit and actually does have a bit of flesh to hold up those nipples, would have probably dragged the thing completely off, and shown her nipples and then the rest of her to the world. And, honestly, she’s not half as gorgeous as you.
So, next time? I suggest think “a-bit-more-elegant-than-Miley”, and a bit less “Oh-God-Oh-God-Oh-God-my-jacket-came-undone-and-now-I-have-to-fix-it”.
Because, hey, if the nip slips, you could miss every high note for the rest of the night as half the people in that audience will suddenly have lost the ability to exhale. Let alone be able to concentrate on what you actually sound like.
Take it from someone who, unknowingly, once walked half the length of New York’s La Guardia Airport with her ass hanging out of her dress — it’s never as bad as you think it is, and you will always give someone a thrill.
Watch Conchita, the jacket and no, sorry, no nipple, although honestly I didn’t get out my magnifying glass so……in the video below.
And try not to completely lose your shit.