What you see is what you get

What you see is what you get

What a difference four years make. The last time Scissor Sisters played Fuji the reaction was underwhelming. At the time the band was touring their second, less exuberant album, and their headlining set at the White Stage started great and just sputtered out. This time, they got the “special guest” position on the Green Stage to officially close the festival, and fulfilled their mission perfectly, or should I say gorgeously.

It helps that the album they’re touring now, “Night Work,” is better, but the show is also tighter, the interactions between lead singers Jake Shears and Ana Matronic more natural. The coyness with which they presented their sex-positive aesthetic is gone. Shears showed the bod throughout the evening and kept threatening to take it all off, which he almost did during the last song. Matronic, on the other hand, explained each song in the most salacious terms. Sometimes, in fact, she got too enthusiastic. “I made a mistake,” she said before going into “Filthy/Gorgeous,” “that song was about fucking. This is the song about the lady with the big cock.” “I know you’re having sex in those tents,” Shears said at one point as an introduction to “Skin Tight.”

Whether of not the audience got the dirty stuff, they certainly got the music, which favored 70s glam pop over disco this time, though the difference is probably academic. Despite the pouring rain, the field in front of the Green Stage was packed, and the crowd bounced as one uniform surface during the big breaks in “Tits on the Radio” and “Running Out.” Since it was the last show of their current tour, the group seemed especially pleased with the response. “This is the best way to go out,” Manatronic said, and then pretended to fellate the microphone.

photo: Maeda