On Monday night I ventured down to Tunnel to see the RuPaul’s Drag Race season 10 winner Aquaria live in Leeds. I wasn’t working today so I thought it would be a bit of a spontaneous adventure. I quickly hopped in the shower, got dressed and headed into town just before the show started.
Now, I’m sure a lot of you are aware of the ‘dress code’ scandal that happened 2 days ago where Aquaria went off on a huge tirade about a bouncer not letting her into Heaven in Liverpool for wearing tracksuit bottoms. I understand the bouncer’s reasonings and I can see why she was annoyed. But rather than it being handled maturely, it all kicked off into a huge Twitter rant about how ‘trash’ Heaven was and that Liverpool was a joke and what not. It was kind of a bitter and childish thing to do.
Aquaria’s entitled(?) tweets
Aquaria’s “If someone like me…” part of her rant is what really got people angry online. People just saw her as an entitled, petulant child who didn’t get her own way so she tried to use her platform and large fanbase to publically trash a well-known and inclusive LGBT venue. Then she came for the queens – christ on a bike, this kid was triggered!
Escandalo indeed!
Of course, being the nosey parker that I am, this is one of the main reasons I decided to head to her show to see if any of this juicy tea would be spilt – it wasn’t. But there’s a reason why I truly do love the gay community in Leeds, they’ve got a good sense of humour. I saw so many people turn up to the gig in tracksuit bottoms and I genuinely found it hilarious. But enough about the drama, back to the show.
When I saw Sasha Velour (Season 9 winner) play in Tunnel, they extended it to the main room of Mission because of popular demand and it was sold out. I’ve never been to a drag show in Leeds as busy as Sasha’s show. Aquaria still pulled in a big crowd but it didn’t feel anywhere near as full. Put it this way, I never had to wait more than 5 minutes in the bar queue.
To kick off the show was Silly Gal and honestly, she was excellent. She had the tough job of being the warmup and getting the crowd going and boy did she. Silly Gal performed a brilliant medley of whorish hooker songs and it was everything. Especially when she cut to audio clips of Kat Slater saying “I became a total slag!” I was very impressed and she got a huge round of applause – this was a truly great way to start a show.
Now we come to the main lady herself, Aquaria
As the 22-year-old Drag Race winner took to the stage, the crowd started cheering (obviously) and she got straight into her first number. Wearing a replica of the iconic Moschino bouquet of flowers dress.
I’ve seen 4 RuPaul’s Drag Race winners perform so far – sadly, Aquaria didn’t make top 3. But while I was having all these thoughts – Aquaria told the crowd that she won Season 10 again.