It was Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden.  I kept reminding myself that while I swore off major arena shows, somehow Scissor Sisters’ big comeback tour was hitched to Kesha’s wagon which meant I needed to be there.  Doing the “Tits Out Tour” with Kesha makes sense for them.  Kesha’s whole thing is being a boy-hungry partygirl with claws, and the gays live for that sort of character, so it seemed like a good chance to fill a stadium with three generations of queers that love either or both acts.  The gays were out in force wearing button-downs with sequins and tassles or sassy tee shirts. The other half of the audience, young women slaggin’ it up in cheetah-print bootyshorts, fishnets, and face glitter (the Kesha uniform I guess?), were being invited in to a subculture they might only otherwise see at a bachelorette. 

The Sisters last show was fifteen years ago at Terminal 5 (I was there and still have the $3 bills), but while T5 is a fun venue that hosts great alternative acts, it isn’t The Garden. I vaguely recall the sisters playing the smaller Theater at MSG years upon years ago, with Jake Shears prophesying they’d play next door one day.  The opener that night was Wigs on Sticks (literal wigs placed on vertical sticks) and they were, uh, “singing” 60s girl group hits.  When the sisters took the stage that night, I looked behind me to check the reaction of the crowd and locked eyes with the bejeweled queer icon Amanda Lepore, who later scurried away to stand under the stage.  The Scissor Sisters were always like that – while some of their songs could play on morning radio, the rest were shuffling two-step in the gay subculture, among the queers on the pier, flippin’ tricks for the burgers.  Tonight both were served, but the hookers, rentboys, and queens in the crowd got second helpings from tracks like “Tits on the Radio” and “Filthy/Gorgeous,” a song so made with/by/ and /for drag that it’s criminal it hasn’t been used on an episode of Drag Race yet.  Addictively cunty track “Let’s Have a Kiki” came in with a phone call delivered by telephone wig, to an audience that might be too young to know what an old telephone receiver looks like.  It’s okay kids, go get some french fries and let us have our growup gay shit.

Scissor Sisters is touring with two female fronts in place of Ana Matronic, and they made it rain ass and tiddies all over that stage.  Amber Martin (badly drawn blonde below) paid homage to her mom’s g-string headed into mainstream megahit “Take Your Mama.” The band flavored the track with George Michael’s “Freedom” chorus that I took as both a tribute and a protest against, you know, everything.  Bridget Barkan (ass below) was out there doing floor work during “Any Which Way,” a song about taking it… well you get it.  She was shaking and baking and somehow jogging in six inch platform heels during “Running Out,” one of few tracks that wasn’t on the sisters’ first album.  I would have loved a few later tracks like homage track “Paul McCartney” or “Night Work,” which (to me) is a song about go-go dancing for tips, one of lead singer Jake Shears’ early hustles, and it would have fit the night’s theme.  Of course, this wasn’t the stage for the ballads – tonight was night for Del Marquis to shred and for Babydaddy to make some bass babies. They were dope, but I didn’t have the space to doodle ’em.

The Scissor Sisters’ grand return was great although I felt like they were an opener and not a double-bill, as I had hoped.  But, I wiggled my ass for all twelve songs, gasped when they blew up a pair of absolutely ridiculous balloon titties, and served camp and foolishness.  “A lot of you may have no idea who we are,” Jake addressed to the crowd, but a lot of us knew exactly who they were, and were overjoyed for their return.  Enjoy my godawful art of what the night felt like.  You can’t see tits on the radio, but sometimes you can see them on stage at The Garden.