Confidence Man are a band steeped in mythology. The Australian four-piece – and yes, they are a four-piece, not a two-piece, that’s the first confusing thing – readily court the rumours that fly about them, and, despite their flagrant onstage exhibitionism, don’t reveal much about themselves.
It’s unclear if the two singers, Janet Planet and Sugar Bones, are brother and sister or romantically involved. They claim to write most of their music while drunk or high. The backline, Reggie Goodchild and Clarence McGuffie, only ever appear in Sia-style black veils. None of those names, obviously, are real – their real identities are deducible online, but, let me tell you, you can’t find out Sugar’s age on Google for love nor money.
This determined silliness carries into their music, which can broadly be defined as high-camp house, with a heavy dose of Europop, and infused with an eclectic mix of other dance genres. It’s unsurprising, then, that London – where they are now based – feels like their spiritual home. Last night at the O2 Brixton, the first of two shows to close out their UK tour of their new album, 3am La La La, it certainly felt like a home crowd.
Confidence Man and London have a lot in common: determined to be cool, and yet also slightly sarcastic and winking about everything. Except perhaps getting off your face, which is a very serious business indeed.
The band took off after their 2022 Glastonbury set on the Park Stage – it was the first instalment of the festival post-Covid and their outlandish hedonism captured the mood. Now they’re famous for these raucous, old-school live shows: last night it wasn’t just high kicks, side-to-side stage sprints and lassoing items of clothing around their heads – Sugar helped Janet into multiple backflips and they broke out into individual dance breaks like kids at a disco after too many Haribo Tangfastics. When they performed their now-famous synchronised side-on shuffle, propelled by mini hip-thrusts, with Janet wearing a pair of light-up cones as a bra (coming into the venue, I saw several men with similar contraptions), there were screams of delight.
They played plenty of club bangers from the new album – like “I Can’t Lose You”, a feverish uptempo track about finding your friends in the club, “So What”, where Janet implored everyone to get on someone’s shoulders and immediately jumped on Sugar’s, and “Real Move Touch”, where the featured British singer and DJ Sweetie Irie appeared to provide yet more hype. It was the old tracks, though, where Confidence Man felt most alive: “Toy Boy”, with its ridiculous choreo, “C.O.O.L Party”, during which Sugar sprayed champagne into the crowd, and “Boyfriend (Repeat)”, a certified banger in which Janet complains in a playful, childlike speaking voice about a boyfriend who “talks too much”.
You can’t deny that there was a wild child vibe, but their skill is in igniting the burgeoning – well, some fully fledged – hedonists in their audience, who consequently don’t notice that what’s happening onstage requires a significant amount of skill and precision. This practised showmanship was carried by Janet, who was a tour de force of magnetism and athleticism. (It’s hard to imagine she’s ever had a cold in her life, or eaten anything that doesn’t come brined and on the side of a martini.)
For much of the show Sugar’s presence was similar to that of husbands who have been chosen for their ability to reach things on tall shelves or open jars; he provided arms and legs for Janet to do backflips on. When he finally got a song to himself, though – the mid-tempo, moody “Sicko”, from the new album – he commanded the crowd’s full attention.
Confidence Man closed the show with – what else? – their 2022 hit “Holiday”, a synthy feat of nonsense lyrics and a pure, true euphoria. We left knowing nothing more about them – but feeling a little looser, a little sillier and ready to accept whatever the city had to offer.
