A gorilla enters the stage. A nervous giggle ripples through the crowd of besequined fans at a rammed Co-op Live arena.
The gorilla shuffles slowly and almost shyly across the stage to an upbeat disco bop - until it reaches the very centre of the platform. And starts twerking.
The twerking gorilla set the tone for a playful, racy and at times flat-out surreal show: Scissor Sisters triumphant return from more than a decade of radio silence.
But nothing could have prepared me for the camp splendour of frontman Jake Shears bursting onto stage in an intricately bejewelled one-piece, belting out an unfaltering falsetto as he frolicked across a disco-apocalypse stage set.
Twenty years after their eponymous debut propelled them to cult-status fame in the UK, the New York band is finally back in their self-described ‘spiritual home’. And their Manchester performance on Wednesday, May 21, certainly felt like a homecoming.
The curtains rose on a stage dominated by a towering, scissor-shaped monolith and curious references to their songs and album covers - a burnt-out jeep, a high-way ramp, a retro payphone.
Shears sprung straight into action with the bouncy synth intonations of ‘Laura’, alongside the unfazeable guitarist Del Marquis, and multi-instrumentalist Babydaddy sporting a PVC vest, all part of the original band.
Missing from the mix was the original female vocalist Ana Matronic, who revealed last year she would be sitting out the reunion tour to ‘work on her history podcast’.
Instead, the band have brought in a different flavour: the fierce vocals and panto charm of ‘New York through and through’ Bridget Barkan and Texan cabaret legend Amber Martin.
The trio were magnetic. Between bursts of bawdy humour, cheeky flashes of G-string and an impressive number of outfit changes packed into the 1.5 hour show (I counted at least 15 between them - but lost track!), the three never failed to deliver absolutely stunning vocals.
Making their way through almost every song from the debut album, from ‘Take Your Mama’ and ‘Tits On the Radio’ through to their award-winning cover of ‘Comfortably Numb’ - alongside some top-hitters like ‘Let’s have a Kiki’ and ‘I don’t feel like Dancin’.
As if that wasn’t enough to keep the crowd entertained - the show also featured a surprise appearance by Girls Aloud star Nicola Roberts.
Scissor Sisters are one of the few physical CDs I still own - and play on repeat to belt out, terribly, on long car journeys.
Their genre-defying mix of psychedelic disco-pop mixed with musical theatre, wild synth and outrageous lyrics have soundtracked my life for the full two decades since they hit the shelves in the UK.
Yet their reunion show had more to offer than simple nostalgia - even though the band didn’t deliver a single new track and certainly ticked the boxes for old-school noughties glamour and classic cabaret kitsch.
The show was simply, refreshingly, shamelessly, fun.
And as if trying to prove that very point, the set concluded by descending into surreal madness. As the crowd waited for the encore, mysterious goings-on took place on the darkened stage.
The band returned with a flash of light - delivering the electroclash-glamrock intro to ‘Filthy / Gorgeous'. Suddenly, alongside them on the stage: three rag-tag monsters and the most humungous pair of inflatable boobs popping out behind the Scissor statue, bopping along to the beat.
