Gig review: Scissor Sisters at The Piece Hall, Halifax

Are there any more colourful bands out there than Scissor Sisters? The New York City veterans may not have the day-glo sugar rush of a girlband gig, or the Technicolor fever-dream of a psychedelia wig-out.

But there is something unabashedly bright about their presence, a wry shot of aerated adrenaline manifested with swaggering glam-pop hooks and nu-disco endorphin rushes – the musical equivalent of mainlining dolly mixture while attempting to undress at a rave.

Certainly, the band’s loud-and-proud credentials illuminate a sun-kissed Halifax evening with no shortage of aplomb. Two years on from a permanent reformation, the band – still fronted by Jake Shears, and the fabulously named Del Marquis and Babydaddy – arrive at The Piece Hall firmly on hits-only assignment, romping across all four of their studio albums in jubilantly freewheeling fashion; an outfit determined to start the party and ensure it runs all the way past sundown too.

Platinum hair swept up into a tottering quiff, Shears may not match the androgynous persuasion of his mid-noughties voice these days, but his range remains breathlessly elastic, swinging from the piano-rock glee of opener I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ through Laura’s martial seduction and I Can’t Decide’s cabaret kiss-off delights.

When he coaxes the refrain of George Michael favourite Freedom! ’90 into Take Your Mama’s high-life swirl, the physical sensation of over 5,000 voices united on its refrain feels as if gravity has palpably unmoored from the Calderdale vistas.

It all moves along at a respectively fat-free clip, reaching a strident climax upon the band’s perky reinvention of the Pink Floyd power-prog classic Comfortably Numb, still majestically limber over 20 years on.

“Magnificent!” Shears cries as Only the Horses puts four-on-the-floor beats into Filthy/Gorgeous and Music is the Victim’s kinetically throbbing finale. So it still remains.