Maximalism is too timid a word: the Scissor Sisters’ first tour in a decade rolls in like an alien carnival. A gorilla-suited master of ceremonies pulls a curtain to reveal the New York band’s logo standing statuesque: scissors split wide open, blades curving into shapely legs. Amid a deserted jeep, retro payphone and broken highway, the metaphor is clear: the Sisters are a crash-landed UFO shaking up dusty Americana.
More than twenty years after their self-titled debut album rocketed them from New York’s queer cabarets to household-name status in the UK, the band tumble from the shadows – effervescent frontman Jake Shears in bedazzled denim, cool-headed guitarist Del Marquis, and PVC-clad multi-instrumentalist Babydaddy – and the bawdy, stabbing synths of early single Laura pull a sold-out crowd to their feet.