FLAMBOYANCE and daring on stage are to be treasured, but that is not to recommend the Queenly pastiches of predictable BRITS nominee Mika.

This week's spotlight instead falls on concert performances 40 years apart but linked by bravura showmanship: Rufus Wainwright's re-creation of Judy Garland's celebrated concert at Carnegie Hall, captured on CD from the original Manhattan theatre in 2006 and on DVD from the London Palladium last year; and Jimi Hendrix's legendary, incendiary American homecoming at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, in definitive, reconfigured editions on CD and DVD.

Wainwright's CD sleeve replicates the orange ticket stub from Garland's show, mimics her 1961 show patter too, and uses some of Garland's musicians in the 36-piece orchestra, but his song-by-song revival of the Hollywood goddess in diva mode is no mere facsimile.

A dapper dresser he may be, and gloriously homosexual too, but rightly resisting the drag-act route, the songwriter in Rufus meets the drama-queen showman as he ventures under the songs' skin, making them personal to his own journey from childhood days when he would sing Over The Rainbow at Wainwright parties.

Rufus dazzles delightfully in the froth of Puttin' On The Ritz and Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart, but the aces here are the reflective The Man That Got Away and I Can't Give You Anything But My Love. Rufus's voice is creamy but, as ever, becomes too rich and narrow in range over long exposure, and so the arrival of sister Martha for Stormy Weather provides welcome contrast. Later, Kate McGarrigle peers lovingly at her son through mumsy spectacles at the piano stool, as Rufus pours his soul into Over The Rainbow.

The DVD, however, would have benefited from a documentary account of the project, not least because Wainwright is such engaging, camp company.

If Rufus is reinterpreting a famous night in show-song history, Hendrix by comparison was making his own history and breaking the mould that unforgettable night in 1967. Welcomed to the stage as a band from England and introduced by the Rolling Stones' Brian Jones as the greatest guitarist he had ever heard, Hendrix's Monterey show was like an alarm going off.

The accompanying American Landing documentary recalls the shock and awe on audience faces as he set fire to his priapic guitar - aptly he was wearing red and yellow - at the climax of Wild Thing. Forty-one years later, no rock'n'roll moment has ever matched it.