Dorian Electra Brings Their Fanfare Symphony to Toronto
A perfect theme for a venue called The Opera House, as Dorian Electra sets up for a fun filled night for their fans. In true renaissance fashion, the stage was adorned with giant candelabras, red curtains with gold detailing, and a venue full of die-hard Electra fans. Fanfare is the latest release from Dorian Electra, who mixes the sounds of classical, electronic, and rock into 13 non-skippable tracks.
Taking to the stage first to start the evening is artist Izzy Spears. Izzy entered the stage with high energy, and a multitude of high contrast colored lighting. Their style of music seems to differ from what Dorian Electra offers, as Izzy’s has a very heavy bass, grungy feel to it. Izzy moved their way across the stage, being very involved and dedicated to their dance moves and performance. Izzy performed songs their latest album M*a*D, with tracks like “Shock Therapy”, “Serena”, and the title track, “M*a*D”. Izzy also performed other songs from their discography like “Hollywood Meltdown”, and “FREAKS”. To close out their set Izzy performed their track “Heaven”, getting the crowd warmed up by getting them to chant the lyrics “eight, nine, ten, eleven, let’s all go to heaven”, back to them.
Up next on the bill for the evening is artist Uffie. Coming out on stage, Uffie wore an oversized band t-shirt with thigh-high bright red stilettos. Uffie has been in the music scene since 2006, creating tracks that are pop, hyper-pop, and rap mixed into one. Uffie is said to have been inspirations to artists like Kesha, Charli XCX, Sophie and Doja Cat, who expanded on her musical style. Uffie’s performance used a mixture of fast changing colorful lights, and rave style flashes. Songs Uffie performed were “Anna Jetson”, “No Take Me Backs”, and her 2006 hit, “Pop the Glock”.
Dorian Electra takes the stage next for the main event of the night. 10 minutes prior to arriving on stage, the lights went out and Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue” played in preparation for Dorian’s grand entrance. The smoke started billowing and once the spotlight flicked on Dorian Electra stood in the middle of an arch adorned by Edison light bulbs and opened the night with their tracks, “Symphony”, “Idolize” and “Flamboyant”. Continuing from the opening tracks Dorian goes into their song “Puppet”, as a giant marionette creature adorned with Melpomene and Thalia masks chased Dorian around the stage. Performing their track “Adam & Steve”, Dorian dedicated the song to their queer fans in the audience. Prior to the first interlude of the night, the two backup dancers battle with trombones, capturing Dorian, tying them up and executing them. They hold up what looks to be a decapitated head before vanishing from the stage in preparation for the shows second act.
A thunderstorm beats out from stage speakers as the backup dancers return wearing matching suits with brown paper bags over their heads with only eye hole cut outs. The storm sounds transitions into Dorian’s song “anon”. Dorian revisits tracks from their 2020 album My Agenda which has a very hard core electronic hyper sound by singing their tracks “Ram it Down” and “M’Lady”. After their song “Touch Grass”, the next interlude begins where the sound of a lawn being mowed is heard. The audio of grass being cut then transitions into a jazz tune, where the backup dancers re-arrive dancing with briefcases adorned with 2 “f”s (standing for Fanfare) on them.
Dorian returns wearing a black outfit with large puffy shoulder pads, and sits at a piano where they perform their song “Career Boy” from their 2020 album Flamboyant. During this time Dorian speaks personally with the crowd, telling them how beautiful they are, and that all we have is each other and that nothing can stop the power of music. Dorian also mentions that the first time they ever performed in Toronto was opening for Rina Sawayama back in 2018. Dorian then moves into their song “Man to Man” where at one point they jokingly change the lyrics to “them to them” as Dorian is openly queer and genderfluid. Moving back into songs from Fanfare, Dorian performs their song “Lifetime” where they have a speech about coffee and how we have to be careful about how we are disposing of things such like coffee grinds. Dorian mentions that we as humans are not careful of how we dispose of waste, and thus we are in turn destroying the planet with our careless ways. Dorian then proceeds to smash the mug on stage and continues performing the rest of “Lifetime”.
Closing out the show Dorian performed songs “Warning Signs”, “Wanna Be A Star” and encore tracks “Sodom & Gamorrah” and “Freak Mode”. Dorian brought high energy, passion, artistry and stunning performance visuals with the Fanfare Tour. A memorable night, and now putting their music higher on my radar. Dorian proves that being experimental with sounds and their lyrism can bring a close group of like-minded people together as fans. Mixing together the genres of rock, pop, electronic and classical is something I never would have thought any artist to conjure up, but Dorian Electra does this seamlessly. If you haven’t had the opportunity to stream Fanfare yet, make sure to do so! In my opinion this album has zero skips and will make you want to get up and dance!
You can stream Fanfare by Dorian Electra below on Spotify: