Monday, October 25, 2004
Music is the Victor
We love the Scissor Sisters, we really do. Earlier this year we awarded them a place in the 117 Acest Things of All Time... Ever! on the basis of their floor-shakingly, roof-blowingly, absolutely fantastic gig they did at The Venue, a small place in Edinburgh (Yes, we were there first, etc, etc. Sometimes we're so hip it hurts). Last night we went off to see them at the Corn Exchange with a mixture excitement and trepidation, mainly because the Corn Exchange is a rubbish venue with all the acoustic quality and atmosphere of a submarine made out of bricks, but if anyone could overcome this and bring life, sparkle and glitter to the place, the Scissor Sisters could, couldn't they?
Damn right they could! It started off, as all gigs should, with the band striking poses in silhouette behind a white curtain which dropped to the sound of Laura. As one, the sell-out crowd pointed their fingers at Babydaddy, demanding to know why he wouldn't give Jake his love. While the only man who can make a porkpie hat/beard combo look good might not have been keen to offer Jake his affections, the audience was more than willing to give him ours, and quite possibly more besides. Dressed in a gold sequined jacket and silver sequined trousers - a look which takes a lot of balls to pull off, something which was quite obvious given the tightness of said kecks. We, however, only had eyes for Ana, who was looking radiant in blue and proved once again that she's the best dancer in pop and can shake her maracca's like nobody's business. She also wielded not one, but two tambourines with aplomb.
Obviously there are some differences now they've moved up to a bigger venue, first up they have a big fancy lighting set-up now, but the audience has also changed quite a bit. This time around it's not just the cool hipsters - and us. They're still there, but there's also virgin gig-goers, who will ultimately end up being disappointed when every other gig they go to fails to match up to the mightyness of this, and Virgin radio listeners, for some this is the first gig they've been to since the time when the Scissor Sisters would be illegal, but it says a lot about the band that they've managed to attract such a wide audience without watering down their sound or doing anything other than being one of the greatest pop bands the world has ever known.
It's hard to think of any way this gig could have been improved. It was a high-octane roller-coaster ride from start to finish, only without any dips, more like a chairlift all the way up to Everest, perhaps. Indeed, such was the intensity of the experience that a guy in front of us fainted. This was no doubt down to the sheer emotion he was experiencing. Or, to be fair, it might have had slightly more to do with the stifling heat, though we're still holding on to the possibility that he collapsed out of shame at suddenly realising he had exactly the same twatty hoxton hair cut as the four mates that he was with, one of whom was a girl. Still, whatever the reason, it seemed a very proper and correct thing to happen.
Unfortunately though, like all good things, lie ins and pieces of string, it had to come to an end. Having started the show so fantastically, you just knew they would have something equally fab to finish it off with, and they did! A costume change, Ana now in black, while Jake opted for a kilt and a performance of Music is the Victim with two stilt walking blokes dressed as scissors dancing around on the stage. What more could you want? Exactly, nothing. And, as a result of that, we're awarding the Scissor Sisters a second placement in our list of The 117 Acest Things of All Time... Ever!. Not even Nicola has managed that. Yet.
