Scissor Sisters in Singapore

PUBLISHED January 10th, 2012 01:02 pm | UPDATED February 28th, 2021 06:51 am

When I heard that the Scissor Sisters were going to be in town last night at Fort Canning, I have to admit I was pretty excited.

And judging by some of the other people who rocked up I wasn’t the only one who was ready to let loose to the sounds of the glam pop/rock American band.

The band was “spawned from the Scuzzy, gay nightlife scene” (and boy can you tell) and fuses a glam mix of playful rock, dance, electronica and basically anything else that goes.  By the way did you know where the name comes from? Well it’s actually the term for a sexual position between two women called tribadism. Well you learn something new every day!

Like with quite a few bands out there unless you are a complete devotee, you might be really familiar with four or five of the songs, so the real test for a gig is whether you enjoy the ones you don’t know just as much. Thankfully Scissors Sisters totally passed this test as Jake Shears unleashed his vocals and and Ana Mantronic totally owned it on stage.

Now it has to be said at this stage that having just flown in from Bali, with 6 out of the 8 band members having had serious Bali belly the past 24 hours, they did a sterling job of performing with full gusto (goodness knows I couldn’t have done it!), jumping around in full abandonment, giving brilliant live renditions where some electronica infused bands can fall down, and all the while delivering the night in a sassy, cabaret-inspired style stage show.

Of course it was great to hear dance floor favourites from their first album Ta-Dah like Comfortably Numb, Take Your Mama, Filthy/Gorgeous and I Don’t Feel like Dancing as well as lesser known tracks like Paul McCartney. These classics were mixed in along with tracks from their 2010 album Nightwork including two of my favourites Invisible Light and Fire with Fire. Needless to say the crowd were jumping about and fists were pumping in the air. Before long Jake was half naked and Ana Mantronic was working it like she was partying hard at a club in true Scissor Sisters style.

Though known for their hot party tunes, it was also great to hear Jake belt out an emotional slow one in Sex and Violence.

It did seem a bit of a short performance which I’m sure was down to Bali Belly, but hats off to the Scissor Sisters for rocking it in their recovering state and even managing an encore rather than making a dash for the loo.