Scissor Sisters Get Dirty in NYC

Because we never got to see Elton John play in the '70s, we went to see the Scissors Sisters on Saturday night at the Theater at Madison Square Garden. We feel safe in saying that there is no frontman in music quite like Jake Shears today — and there might never be again. Shears hit the stage wearing a yellow shirt, a white suit covered with op-art Capezio flair and a visor. (He ultimately stripped most of it off; costume changes came later, of course.) Channeling some unholy fusion of Pee-Wee Herman and Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen, Shears was constantly in high-energy motion: mugging, humping the stage and most of all, dancing. He hoofed like Liza Minelli, he pogo-ed like Ed Grimley, he even mimed jump-roping around the stage.

And the music? Well, the hour-and-a-quarter-long set was pretty evenly split between the band's two albums, with the accent firmly on danceable up-tempo numbers. Unfortunately, the mix was muddy for much of the show and the room seemed to dwarf the band, even when its five members were bolstered with an extra musician and a horn section.

This show, while tuneful and fun, ultimately got classified with Blink-182 in an odd subcategory of live music: Concerts that are more entertaining between songs than during them. Shears told a lewd story about his boyfriend buying Mr. Ease anal relaxing spray in London, and the resulting chamomile aroma giving new meaning to the term "tea-bagging." Meanwhile, his fellow lead singer Ana Matronic mouthed off about former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani ("fuck that guy — he's still a jerk") and Australians who complained about the band's onstage profanity: "What do you expect from a band named after a specific lesbian sex position?"

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Song Stories

“Weird”

Hanson | 1997

Accomplished tunesmith Desmond Child co-wrote "Weird" with the three brothers that make up Hanson. Credited for dozens of cuts, including songs by Kiss, Cher, Bon Jovi and Aerosmith, Child told Rolling Stone that "Weird" holds a special place in his heart, "because it's about being different--and I grew up poor, I grew up being Latin, I grew up being gay, and now I'm fat!" The song was included on Hanson's 1997 album Middle of Nowhere, which sold more than ten million units.

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