Austin – I’ll be honest and say that most of the Panic Manual was pretty pissed off Saturday night. We all had our rsvps for the Perez Hilton party and that was pretty much the only thing on our schedule that night. However, poor planning (by Perez’s people), late start time and an unwillingness to wait in the freezing weather for a few hours forced us to leave the lineup for the party in search of something else. We were all cold and bitter I was really looking forward to seeing Snoop Dogg (no idea why) for the first time and also seeing VV Brown and Marina and the Diamonds again. The sudden and unexpected change of plans forced us to reevaluate our plans and try to make something out of nothing. A 26 of Irish Whiskey later, the PM crew was ready to rock and looking to close off SXSW with a nice fun show. Luckily, the crowd at Stubbs was rather sparse and we made it into see Scissor Sisters
I don’t think Scissor Sisters really need an introduction, but they are a glammy disco queer dance band from New York City. You might recognize their songs Take Your Mama and I Don’t Feel Like Dancin. Neglecting the freezing weather, the band came out casually dressed and delivered a pretty good party show. The Scissor Sisters are about good times and with some killer bass, nice synth grooves and playful interactions/dance moves between Jake Shears and Ana Matronic, they definitely whipped up the crowd in a fun frenzy. I don’t care what your attitude is towards semi mainstream music, but when a song as ridiculously catchy as I Don’t Feel Like Dancin comes on, you are moving your body…too bad this song also stays in your head for hours afterwards.
The band drew material from their previous two albums, as well as introduced the crowd to some new songs, all of which were received with enthusiasm. I haven’t really listened to their second cd – Ta Dah very much so I can’t tell you which songs were new and which ones were off that album. They did play a stellar version of Tits on the Radio, which was the song that garnered my attention to the band way back in 2003-2004.
Overall, Scissor Sisters was a good consolation prize for missing Perez’s party. Heading in, I knew they were going to put on a good fun show, and that’s exactly what they did.