Scissor Sisters have announced two intimate warm-up shows ahead of their UK and Ireland arena tour this spring.
READ MORE: Scissor Sisters on reunion tour, a Susan Boyle collab, being labelled a “gay band”
The band will play at Brighton’s Concorde 2 and Bristol’s SXW on May 7 and 8 respectively, marking their return to the stage for the first time in over a decade. Tickets will go on sale at 10am on Friday (March 28) – you can buy yours here.
The string of dates is in celebration of the 20th anniversary of their self-titled debut album. Jake Shears, Babydaddy and Del Marquis will return on the comeback tour; vocalist Ana Matronic will not join due to being occupied with other projects.
Scissor Sisters will also perform selected hits from their following albums (2006’s ‘Ta-Dah’, 2010’s ‘Night Work’ and 2012’s ‘Magic Hour’).
In a press release, Shears shared that the tour was inspired by a lockdown screening of their 2007 concert film Scissor Sisters: Live at the O2, adding: “It’s the 20th anniversary of our debut album, so it really feels like the right time to revisit all the intense excitement of that moment. I don’t think I’d seen that show since it was filmed in 2007, but we were all kind of surprised by how great it was. And chatting with fans during the screening really brought back what a special moment it was for all of us.”
Meanwhile, Babydaddy said: “There’s something really special about us being a gay band, a queer band, who really pushed into the mainstream with that album. We want to revisit that because there weren’t as many queer acts breaking through in that way 20 years ago. We do acknowledge that we did something pretty unique back then just by putting ourselves out there as queer people. We put queer culture in the mainstream at a time when there wasn’t much of it there.”
The Scissor Sisters’ 2025 UK reunion tour dates are:
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16 – Nottingham – Motorpoint Arena
17 – Glasgow – OVO Hydro
19 – Bournemouth – International Centre
20 – Cardiff – Utilita Arena
21 – Manchester – Co-op Live
23 – London – The O2
24 – Leeds – First Direct Arena
25 – Birmingham – Utilita Arena
27 – Belfast – SSE Arena
28 – Dublin – 3Arena
The band spoke to NME in November about their reunion tour. “I could be completely wrong about this, but it did feel like there was sort of a zeitgeist moment where [interest in the band] was bubbling up a little bit,” said Babydaddy. “It just felt like there was enough distance for us. I don’t think five years ago we were quite ready to start reminiscing about those days.”
They were also asked if being labelled a ‘gay band’ was grating for them.
“It did, yeah. I was looking at our straight counterparts, and, like, I had a bit of resentment that we sort of had this extra label that made it easier for some [people] to dismiss us. And I think I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder about that,” said Shears.
Babydaddy added: “It’s a lot less loaded now, but in that moment, I think there was a question of, like, ‘Are people saying that to put [the band] in its own little box?’ I don’t really know what it was supposed to say, except that we were open about who we were, and there were some themes [in our music] that were definitely queer themes.”
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