Flutterby™! : pearls before swine

Went to Pearls Before Swine down at Club Galia last night. We were lured there with a promise of a Kitten on the Keys performance, got there at the appointed nine o'clock, and the place was empty. Luckily Kitten and Ward (her honey, and, among other roles of note, part of Polkacide) were there, wondering why the club wanted them there at 6 to set up (they'd actually arrived at quarter after 8, and were still wondering what to do with all the time), so we sat and chatted with them for a while.

Dr. Abacus opened, good enough that we got their CD, and then, interspersed with various other things, Kitten did a few bits. There was, however, a serious lack of vibe going down. There was some DJ spinning the usual boring 2/2 up in the front of the club, allegedly a play-space upstairs (we didn't go up to check), and the various other performers were doing bump-n-grind sorts of things that weren't really playing off the audience.

Part of what makes burlesque so much fun is that there is the audience there to play off of. You don't holler, the scarf doesn't come off. Even in drag shows, where nothing's coming off, it's all about the give and take with the crowd. When the performers start off mostly naked, and when they have that bored 20 year old ennui that I find completely off-putting, there's no audience participation. Yes, there is a certain aesthetic to Suicide Girls posing in the clothing from various places I forget the links to, but it's not something that demands that live interaction. Ho, hum.

The theme for the evening was fetish, drag, pearls and piggies (whence the pearls before swine), I went in silk, Charlene in velvet (our respective fetishes), and there were a few drag newbies and lots of skimpy vinyl and a little bit of leather, but rather than being cool in its eclecticism the crowd just felt cracked and unconnected. Not a bad evening out, but probably not one we'll be chasing down again.