To Jesus, Thanks For Everything! Jinkx and DeLa

I was fortunate that while I was home I got to attend the holiday-themed show To Jesus, Thanks For Everything! Jinkx and DeLa by two of my favorite RuPaul's Drag Race alums Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme. My cousin Leilani joined me and we first had a yummy Mexican dinner at Papito Hayes before walking to the Herbst Theatre at the San Francisco War Memorial for the last show of this tour.

As Ben and Jinkx pointed out, December is a very popular month for drag-themed holiday shows. This one was written by both of them and played on their drag personalities, with the upbeat DeLa being a Christmas tour de force while Jinkx was dragged along for the ride, drinking side of stage and trying to get DeLa to acknowledge her Jewish heritage. There were many musical numbers and costume changes throughout the show, with my favorite being DeLa as a Christmas tree and Jinkx in a Star of David blue dress with menorah strapped to her back.

The show touched on a lot of different topics in a really intelligent way, including religion, politics, cultural appropriation, and toxic masculinity and misogyny. It was all very funny and we were laughing out loud throughout, especially when the tables turned and Jinkx had to motivate a despondent DeLa to finish the show. I also enjoyed the clips of DeLa's attempt to create a Rudolph-like stop motion animation that were interspersed through the evening.

I am so happy I was able to go to this show, and finally get to see DeLa perform live. I hope that both them will bring either their solo shows or do one together in Australia in 2019.

Comedy Queens 2018

Last night I was fortunate enough to get to see the sold out Comedy Queens 2018 Australian tour at 170 Russell. The show was hosted by Australia's Maxi Shield and featured American drag queen legends and newer queens from different seasons of Ru Paul's Drag Race doing a mix of comedy, songs and lip syncs. The three legendary drag performers on the bill Lady Bunny, Sherry Vine and Jackie Beat each took turns performing stand-up and their own parody songs. My favorite was Sherry and Jackie's duet of "I Got You Bitch" (sung to Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe").

The two Season 10 girls Monet X Change and Monique Heart each gave really high energy lip sync performances. Monet also had a funny stand-up set, and gave a shout out to a girl in the crowd who created her own sponge dress. Ginger Minj from Season 7 and All Stars 2 did a stand-up set, which unfortunately fell a bit flat with the crowd, as well as a great telephone-themed lip sync mash-up based around Adele's "Hello." Even with the technical difficulty of her track dropping out in the last 30 seconds, the crowd clapped along so she could sing and finish the performance.

The other Season 7 queen and All Stars 3 winner on the bill was my favorite skinny legend Trixie Mattel. Trixie, who was celebrating her 29th birthday, had a tight set of comedy and music. She sang a mix of her own material and mash-up covers of Avril Lavigne's "Sk8er Boi" and Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide," alongside Oasis' "Wonderwall" and a hint of Eminem's "Lose Yourself" for all the white people in the crowd. Trixie was so funny and you can tell all her time on the road has made her such a fantastic and engaging performer.

This was also my first time getting to see another favorite of mine, Season 5 winner Jinkx Monsoon. She sang a fantastic cabaret version of Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass" and then did a whole set about being a high functioning alcoholic and slut, and the influence of different Disney films on sexual preferences. Overall it was an entertaining but long three hour show, which I'm sure will tighten up as they do the other two shows of the tour in Sydney and Brisbane this weekend.