Fischerspooner, The Bridge, London

The Emperor's latest clothes

Fischerspooner have arrived in London for this first of two wildly oversubscribed shows on an avalanche of hype and rumours of huge excess, both financial and aesthetic. Momentary kings of the electroclash scene (ie, Eighties synth-pop with posher beats), the New York duo of Casey Spooner (vocals/lyrics) and Warren Fischer (music) have signed to British label Ministry of Sound for a reported £2m – or £1m, depending which day you ask – while their last New York gig, sponsored by the city's arts council, cost $250,000, such was its lavishness.

The crowd are fashionable without being fashion victims, far less committed than the mascara'd New Romantics who adored Fischerspooner's sources in London 20 years ago. So when much of the three-hour wait for the band's late start is spent watching them on big-screen TVs as they lazily change backstage, the reaction is one not of indulgence but impatience, slow hand-claps, and boos before they even play a note. This early frost is never fully cracked by the far from epic, wilful amateurishness that follows.

If the Emperor had bothered to design new clothes, they might well have looked like Fischerspooner: skimpily dressed punk boys in Marie Antoinette/Vegas showgirl drag, grinding and high-kicking around Spooner, who is clothed like a camp Eighties movie supervillain.

Everyone moves robotically, and it's OK until, as will happen all night, it crashes to a bumbling halt between songs. Spooner then struggles out of his ill-fitting costume during a pretty cover of Wire's "The 15th", topped later by an even more shambolic striptease, a mess only excused by him blithely admitting, "I have no talent, really..."

With this confession, and the realisation that Fischerspooner know how cack-handed they look, I warm to them. But what they promised was Broadway opulence dwarfing mere gigs, and that is in short supply. A sudden shower of gold glitter and a dry-ice machine that buffets Spooner like a hurricane are just half-measures, dazzle on the cheap. Spooner's stage-dives are more effective, with their low-tech element of risk (greater than usual, given the crowd's mood – apparently, he's punched).

The appearance of two women for "Sandra H", wearing a crotch-high dress, and fur waistcoat and knickers respectively, to lip-synch, dead-eyed, about glamour, also benefits from the simple virtues of sexiness and a strong song.

The fur-coat-and-no-knickers attitude of what has gone before is shown up by the climactic "Emerge". With more than a touch of New Order's "Blue Monday", it is greeted as a genuine anthem by the crowd, with girls jumping on shoulders and punching the air.

More tunes, less cheap cheesiness, might save them. Otherwise, this is only fun once.