Most of the problems seem ironed out, there were no crushes on Entertainment Avenue, however the huge queues for the restaurants were still there. Luckily inside the O2 arena its self there was a distinct lack of queues and we were served in second flat for food – much better than last times 90 mins.
I’d gone to see the Scissor Sisters and my expectations were high. I love the band and have twice been amazed by their live performances at the Brits – performances that made me vow to see them live.
So they came on stage and straight away something was wrong… the sound was awful. All bass and no top – I could barely make out the singing instead being blasted by the drums and bass guitar. Obviously after Djing for 8 years I’m bound to notice things like this more than your average blokey so I asked Miss Smeg what she thinks – ‘I can hardly hear them’ she noted – bingo it wasn’t just my geeky DJ ear.
At this point I resigned that it may be and hour of just enjoying the lighting – which was absolutely stunning throughout – and the stage was amazing. There was a huge fault other than the sound though – the fact you couldn’t see them. A huge stadium gig and they didn’t even have decent large screens to relay the action to the back. Instead there was a blurry back lit projection as part of the set design – which occasionally showed live fuzzy pictures of the band but mostly had computer generated guff that you get as part of Windows Media Player.
Cue the third problem, out of the 19,000 people there we were stood behind the one girl that decides she wants to dance like a freak for the whole fucking show. No matter how much we moved our heads to see she’d move to block our view. Normally I find nothing sexier than a woman dancing well – sadly she was nothing like a woman dancing well – she jumped and jiggled in a variety of bizarre movements that distracted me from the show.
No matter, 10 minutes in and the sound became clearer, bass still slightly too heavy but the singing was now audible. Jake Shears amazed me in that he is a truly great singer – something that perhaps you don’t register so much on the studio albums he hit all the notes perfectly despite bounding about the stage with energy that gave me an asthma attack just watching… but that’s all he did. There were no costume changes and none of the flamboyance that has made me love the Scissor Sisters there were only two bits of audience interaction - Anna Matronic made some bizarre references to Jesus, which didn’t sit well, and then Jake ripped the piss out of Barbara Streisand.
All in all then a huge disappointment, they just didn’t seem to connect with the crowd and the atmosphere was slightly lacking… apart from jiggling girl… They played all the hits which was great but they played them identically to the albums – usually with live performances you expect a few tweaks to make things more fun.. they didn’t even do a cover.
I wouldn’t go to see them again, which is a shame as I do genuinely love their music but they were such a stark contrast to Basement Jaxx whom I saw last month and had the same arena alive in seconds.
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