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Concert reviews Music

Campy cut-ups

SCISSOR SISTERS with the FUZZ at the Guvernment, January 17. Tickets: $22.50. Attendance: sold out. Rating: NNNN

Rating: NNNN


You gotta hand it to the Canadian Idol Svengalis. Since last season’s People’s Pop Star has all the stage presence of a veal calf on the chopping block, the fine folks in Idolworld have immersed the lad in an intensive Performance 101 regime.

That’s what I assumed after seeing Kalan Porter in the audience at the Guvernment Monday night. I’d love to think the Scissor Sisters ‘ queer campiness was his own choice, but considering the dude’s official bio lists his fave music as Christian rock, that’s a bit of a stretch.

Poor guy looked shell-shocked. Hey, is he even old enough to drink? And I’m surprised one of the glam homos didn’t try to pull a Queer Eye on the moppet’s over-gelled coif.

Oh, well. Porter got the best possible lesson in how to pull off a spectacular show.

Openers the Fuzz , the new venture from musical sweethearts Martina Sorbara and Dan “the New Deal” Kurtz , were a power-poppy delight. Coming off a Sunday-night teaser gig at Supermarket, the crew showed off big shiny tunes driven by singalong hooks about hating people. Awesome.

The Fuzz have a Cars-meet-No Doubt thing (if the Cars had been fronted by a sweet-voiced babe, or if the old Gwen Stefani cloned herself to sing girly harmonies) that showcases Sorbara’s flirtatious charisma better than her more chill solo stuff.

And between Kurtz’s band’s new-wavey vibe and his recent production work, the guy’s becoming Toronto’s Ric Ocasek. Does that make Sorbara the new Paulina Porizkova?

Between sets, NYC DJ import Sammy Jo pumped out circuit anthems that made the Guvernment feel like Electric Circus. The ecstatic fags and their hags started workin’ it and didn’t stop till the Scissor Sisters played their final encore.

The flamboyant crew took the stage right on schedule, appearing in a cloud of dry ice and a twinkly rainbow light show, and the crowd ate it up, fists pumping and hands held aloft in the two-fingered Scissors salute.

The Sisters are what would happen if Elton John, Freddie Mercury, the B-52s and a drunk Nashville Pussy had sweaty group sex in a clown car. Unlike, say, kindred spirits Gravy Train, their flamboyant stage antics aren’t meant to mask a lack of instrumental prowess. They got chops, and they know how to shape a good song. Their encore spin on Franz Ferdinand’s Take Me Out was a Fosse-meets-disco dream, but it felt entirely natural. Ditto for hit single Comfortably Numb.

Frontman Jake Shears bunny-hopped and sashayed from one side of the stage to the other sans shirt when not trading razor-sharp barbs with ceremonial mistress/vocalist Ana Matronic or unleashing his strong falsetto. Shears also pulled off the single best one-liner of the night. In response to Matronic’s announcement that she hoped fans listened to their disc while “eating pussy,” the fag-tastic frontman intro’d cunnilingus ode Rock My Spot by quipping, “I ain’t gonna eat it, but I think it deserves to be et.”

Well done, sir.

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