Recap Fischerspooner at First Avenue

Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay "Notes on 'Camp'" gives the best context for the totally bonkers sexy dance party Fischerspooner threw at First Avenue on Friday night. Sontag wrote, “Camp taste draws on a mostly unacknowledged truth of taste: the most refined form of sexual attractiveness (as well as the most refined form of sexual pleasure) consists in going against the grain of one's sex. What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.” In other words: Prince. The spirit of His Purpleness was strong in the Mainroom: Casey Spooner called him out from stage several times, and openers Ssion kicked off the show with the same verve Paisley One gives his guitar solos.

Like Fischerspooner, Ssion is not so much a band as a performance, complete with cardboard sets and precise choreography to gleefully colorful video projections—it's as much Pee-wee’s Playhouse as Prince and Sontag. Fronted by Cody Critcheloe, who growled, wailed, and yelped through catty come-ons with total abandon as a hyper-sexualized, über-masculine mustachioed leather aficionado (sound like anyone you know?). With thumping tracks like “Bullshit” and “The Woman”, the ebullience was electrifying, especially with the ending paean to late-night cruising that had the crowd chanting, “Gee whiz! Street jizz!” Critcheloe ended by proudly proclaiming, “We’re not from New York City!  We’ve never been from New York City! We’re from Kansas City, Missouri!” Minneapolis can relate.

Unlike the DayGlo bounciness of Ssion, Fischerspooner’s set was a bathed in neon and silvers, a low-rent, high-concept futuristic opulence for what Spooner called “the Recession Tour.” Spooner, muscular in a corset and leggings, stalked and flitted cross the stage supported by four dancers in various states of undress. The company moved through various incarnations of dance, from Chinese opera for the opening number “Amuse Bouche” to balletic movement to all-out grinding. As a slightly masochistic dance instructor wielding a bo staff during “Danse en France,” Spooner put the company through their paces with asides to the audience before tearing up their 2001 breakout hit, “Emerge.” Clips from camp classic Showgirls played on the TV screens onstage for the latter half of the show, which rarely let up in intensity. The lighting was often blinding, inducing a club euphoria that carried through to the encore and finale of “We Are Electric.” As the lights blacked out, Spooner cried triumphantly, “That, my friends, is show business!” In its most refined form indeed.

Fischerspooner set list:
"Amuse Bouche"
"Happy"
"Get Confused"
"A Kick In The Teeth"
"Money Can’t Dance"
"Supply & Demand"
"Danse en France"
"Emerge"
"Cloud"
"F***er"
"Sweetness"
"The Best Revenge"

Encore
"Never Win"
"We Are Electric"

Ssion

Fischerspooner

Fischerspooner

Fischerspooner

Fischerspooner

Ssion

Ssion

Ssion

Ssion