Let me start by saying I’ve spent hours analyzing Conchita Wurst’s live performances. She’s my girl, why wouldn’t I?
What that means, though, is each time a new performance pops up online, I’m looking for things most people aren’t. Things that make me know with 100 percent certainty, she’s either ‘on point’, absolutely perfectly confident and composed, and going to knock that performance ‘out of the ballpark’ or, like last night on Wetten Dass, she’s so keyed up and nervous, she’s jagged and raw. (And bear with me, Conchita, if you’re reading this – you ROCKED last night, maybe not in the way you wanted to, but a whole lot better).
Now, before I get into this, let me add something here, so you are absolutely aware of it. Because it is important.
Last night’s debut performance of Conchita Wurst’s new single ‘Heroes‘, was one of the key performances of her career so far. Second only to the semi-final at Eurovision. Yet most people don’t seem to get that.
If you’re one of them………..think about it.
Conchita Wurst has been on the music scene for three years. During that time, she’s only put out three singles. All of them good, but three nevertheless. Since she won Eurovision, however, she has had pressure from all sides for her to produce a single, and an album. Pressure she has dealt with incredibly well but………..pressure.
And what she eventually produces, as Conchita herself says “should better be good” (ignore the slight grammatical error – I deliberately use it because, to me, it’s part of her loveliness).
Now, ‘Heroes‘ is finished and it’s been released. And, yes, this thing had better be good. Because if it’s not, her singing career will have enormous stumbling blocks to overcome before she even gets it properly off the ground. I know it. She knows it. The bloody music industry absolutely knows it.
And so, last night, on Wetten Dass, Conchita Wurst presented ‘Heroes‘ for the first time. She was nervous, she was tense, her body language was slightly stilted, and you could tell from the first few lines the way she was singing was rougher and more raw than she wanted it to be.
You could see it in her eyes, in the tightness of her face, in her timing that was ever so slightly off and in that mike……being gripped so tightly at times it looked like they may just have to pry it loose.
Yet, what came out of it was beautiful. It was Conchita with unbelievable emotion. With a voice that cracked in all the wrong places, which made it more real than any overly rehearsed performance ever could.
A voice, nevertheless, that hit all the high notes and low notes with such power (God, the woman has an unbelievable range), and a voice that made you believe she’s going to be “dancing to the sound of her battle cry” for a long time to come.
And, while Conchita Wurst’s studio-produced single ‘Heroes‘ is gorgeous, going to be a hit single, well into being my favorite song in eons and, yes, almost perfect…………….her live performance on Wetten Dass last night was at a completely different level.
It was Conchita, “I may be making mistakes, and that perfection I’m always striving for may have left the building at the end of the first lyric but, man, few people on the planet can make this song sound as beautiful as I can”. And it was Conchita absolutely, unmistakably real and, because of that, I did, I do, and I always will — love this performance.
Because everything about how she was feeling at that small moment in time came through her voice and her face, and it was beautiful.
Right up to that last sliver of a second as she finished when….she didn’t dare wonder if you approved of it and her. But………… she was desperately hoping you did.
That was the Conchita I love.
The one who always thinks she’s hiding, but isn’t really. The one, if most of you looked inside yourselves closely, you would see she’s the one you love the most. Because she is the one with the ability to break your heart. The one who will make it to superstardom.
And the music that Conchita produced on Wetten Dass last night? Breath-taking.