If there is ever a night to see Diamanda Galas, it is Halloween. Tonight's performance is titled "Malediction and Prayer: Concert For The Damned" and goth's reigning sex symbol has chosen Carnegie Hall to cast her spell. They must have warned the staff at Carnegie Hall about the expected audience because none of the ticket-takers bat an eye at the vampire capes, Flock Of Seagulls hairdos, Cruella De Ville streaks, stabbing victims or full-body bondage gear many of the concertgoers chose for their Big Night Uptown. Which makes me wonder: What do these folks do for a living? There can only be a few possibilities: Work at a record store, work at a clothing store, work at Kinko's. After scouting the crowd in the lobby for ex-boyfriends or the undead, we head in.

Tonight, Galas is culling her performance from a list of selections in the program, including pieces by poet Charles Baudelaire, Son House, Johnny Cash, the Supremes, Phil Ochs and Tristan Corbiére. While the running order is not announced, it's a bit like a prix fixe menu where you know the chef will stun and dazzle.

As we tuck into our red velvet seats and admire the diapers on the fellow cruising down the aisle, the sense of agitation is palpable. Some admirers have waited years to see her -- my companion has come all the way from Australia. When Galas emerges onto a bare white stage to her gleaming black piano, she's greeted by waves of applause from devoted fans.

9:10 PM EST

Clad in a shimmering black blouse, skintight pants, and long black hair streaming, she looks like Hell's mermaid. She plants herself at the piano and opens her mouth as if bleeding sonically. She stretches and squeezes every note of "Last Man Down," a composition by her and Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones: "Am I the last man down/If I'm the last man down/won't you lead me from despair? Am I the last man down/If I'm the last man down/won't you save my mind from care?/Won't you hold me in your prayer?/If I'm the last man down/Won't you lead me softly down the stairs?" Delivered in a brutal, lengthened howl that is almost unidentifiable as human, it is the sound of the earth splitting in grief and torment. Quite an opening act.

9:15 PM EST

Although she was trained as an opera singer, it's impossible to judge Galas on any vocal scale except perhaps that of animals. At first buzzing like a swarm of bees, then harmonizing with herself in a breathtaking spell of vocal control and power, her sonic pyrotechnics are simply off the chart. She swirls and vibrates like a cello or violin and all I can think of is when this woman has a sore throat -- she must really have a sore throat.

9:19 PM EST

I'm struck by how there are no sounds of breathing or puffing even after her most strenuous lines. Where other singers use the air almost as a note or a contrast to their more powerful or showy phrases, Galas seems to breathe continuously as if her voice is wind: haunting, powerful and eternal. The effect is spellbinding.

9:20 PM EST She is illuminated simply by two spotlights on opposite balconies which catch her in the crossfire, appropriately like a deer in the headlights. The lights change color subtly, from white to blue, to red, changing the mood, and somehow the temperature, in the room.

9:21 PM EST Following a cycle of her legendary shrieking, she rolls into the richly soft, muddy notes of her blues voice. This is a siren's call seeming to warn us that these are the black, black years, only blacker years to follow. And yet, I wonder -- if she was performing at the Pyramid Club tonight instead of Carnegie Hall and no one knew her name, would anyone in the audience listen to the message or simply dismiss her shrieks and moans as that of another weird woman out of control? Would they treat her testimony as something sacred or mock her fever? Hearing her is a bit like tipping a chair back -- the moment before you go over (or catch yourself) is terrifying... and also a secret thrill.

9:22 PM EST Her third composition draws thunder from her piano. I have no idea what effects pedals she's using but I've never heard the instrument sound like that. Does Tori Amos know about this? Francis Ford Coppola enlisted Galas to provide some of the screams in Dracula and it may have been the only smart thing he did on that movie. Now her voice is neither male nor female, but the sounds of bones scraping against each other and catching fire. Transposing an unrelenting scream with an almost childlike melody and back again, she is sly at the end and finishes abruptly, leaving the audience hung in midair. She nearly throws her hands off the piano and sucks down a bottle of water as if it were a life force.

9:25 PM EST Only Galas could perform the Supremes' "My World Is Empty Without You" and have it come off so nasty and then sincere with a gospel dirge undercurrent. Diana Ross will never sound the same to me. The piano sounds like a machine revving down, with the effects pedal winding the notes in a distorted spiral.

9:30 PM EST On one of the French pieces, Galas' voice rises and swirls like smoke and serpents and she seems freed by the musical lilt of the language. Romance languages never sounded so evil and full of sorcery. The white spotlights bleach out her face like a mad Pierrot clown, while her vocal lines chase each other up and down crazily like squirrels. Her French is twisted into an iron spitfire that would probably have my high school teacher Madame Ennis reaching for her rosary.

9:40 PM EST Galas coaxes a delicate piano line then mangles it into a nightmare. She can sound like the oldest black man alive, an ingenue quivering in cold water or a sorceress telling you things are bad and are going to stay that way forever. Working off her music scores, she drifts into "Si La Muerte," with words by Miguel Mixco. Weaving her Spanish rage and grief with "la la la's" that flutter like birds in a storm, it's a highlight of the evening.

9:50 PM EST On "Supplica A Mi Madre," written by late Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini, the lovely melody is shadowed like a menacing Tim Burton fairy tale score. A lullaby for the dying?

10:00 PM EST Willie Dixon's "Insane Asylum" takes a witty, evil turn when Galas groans "save me, save me, save me" only to roll into a crazed monkey shriek and then snap back into the orgasmic lure of "save me, save me" for a snapshot of a sly schizophrenic who has the system all figured out. With spontaneous cheers from the audience, it's a giddy roller coaster in the dark. Another highlight.

10:05 PM EST "Dancing In The Dark," no not the Bruce Springsteen version, but a sinister and mesmerizing version of the Schwartz/Dietz classic.

10:10 PM EST It takes a lot of nerve to cover a Johnny Cash song, especially "Twenty-Five Minutes To Go." The death row tale winds down a convict's last moments, minute by inexorable minute until she steps outside to the noose and thinks "it's too damn pretty for a woman to die/got two more minutes to go/and now I'm swinging and here I go-oh-oh-oh" If it's possible for something as simple as the human voice to transcend time and space and become something holy, this is it. With her last note eulogizing the dead taken before their time, it's one of the most unforgettable and chilling moments of live performance I have ever experienced.

As a final piece, it's pretty hard to top, and as Galas waves goodbye she seems surprised that there is an audience there for what was surely an excruciatingly private performance. Three curtain calls later, she returns to her piano.

10:15 PM EST "Be Sure That My Grave Is Kept Clean" is a traditional piece in a very untraditional arrangement by Galas. Slapping her hands across the keys like great wings, she colors the song with a sordid little shuffle and drag.

The audience will not let Galas go. After three more curtain calls, she responds to a plea for a request with a huffy "I'm not going to do anyone's requests anyway." Yes, ma'am.

10:25 PM EST "Gloomy Sunday" -- well what kind of Sunday did you think she'd have? After more curtain calls, the diva is released and lights come up on an audience still reeling from the effect. It's going to be awfully hard to listen to another singer after the damage Diamanda Galas has left in her wake.

* * Nicole Blackman is reputedly wanted for murder.