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A good pop act arrives with an origin story, and Haute & Freddy come with two. The first, laid out in the crudely filmed video that opened their set at the Hollywood Theatre on Wednesday, has the pair making a daring escape from the circus. The second is less fanciful but more telling. 

Before they were Haute & Freddy, Michelle Buzz and Lance Shipp wrote songs for other artists—until they got fed up with watching those artists pass on their best material. So they kept the songs and put on the jester hats themselves.

That second story was the one on my mind as I made my way into a sold-out room full of the duo's devoted fans, who call themselves the Royal Court. A band that dresses like a travelling medieval fair could easily be all wink and no substance. I wanted to know whether the songs those other artists turned down were actually any good.

First, though, the room needed warming up, and the Rubin Brothers were the right act for the job. The Boston duo work in an old-school vaudeville mode. They juggled, sang passibly, stood on a stand-up bass, and had the type of  throwback showmanship that made a natural lead-in for a headliner that mixes old-world spectacle with modern synth pop. The crowd was very into it, but I imagine it would not have been so enthusiastically received at literally any other pop show. 

Then the lights dropped, the animation rolled, and the escapees arrived. She's Haute, he's Freddy. The duo pranced on stage, decked out in the night’s dress code theme (Ren Riot—which apparently means Vivienne Westwood-inspired plaid punk) and went straight into "Anti-Superstar" before rolling into the wonderful Gary Numanesque "Fashion Over Function."

The division of labour was made clear. Haute handles every word of stage patter in an affected crone voice, a cackling fairy-tale witch pitched to the back of the balcony and then some. Freddy never says a word. He holds down the rhythm with light drums and a drum pad, while a pre-recorded backing track carries much of the arrangement. Anyone hoping to see every synth line played live will notice, but in a show this theatrical, the tracks free both performers to sell the concept, and the mix never felt thin. The sound was full all night.

Their songs are quite short, and the set moves at a real clip because of it. Most of the songs are bops that land hard. Admittedly, weaker material gives a slight stench of Rusical, where the camp outruns the songwriting, though man oh man does this group know how to milk a hook. 

Elsewhere the exceptional songwriting did the heavy lifting. "I Like My People Weird," the first song the pair ever wrote together, is a big-hearted, Cyndi Lauper-style ballad, and Haute delivered it while wandering through the packed crowd handing out roses. It was one of the sweetest moments of the evening and an early answer to my question.

The circus came to town properly once the “fous”, Haute and Freddy’s clown backup dancers,  joined in on “Freaks”. For "Scantily Clad," the single that first built the duo's following, Haute invited audience members up on stage to play parts in the song (royalty, knights, and a pink beret), and the volunteers committed to the bit with the kind of enthusiasm you can't rehearse. Haute then “stalled for time” by amusingly improvising songs about people in the crowd. This played MUCH better than it sounds, as her improv skills were top notch. The songs were funny and charming, none more so than a birthday tribute to audience member Chase, who, the whole room learned, likes to smash imperialism when it rains.

The big payoff came with "Dance the Pain Away" and "Touch Touch." The latter is the pair's brand-new single and their first new music since their debut album, Big Disgrace. Either one could end up among the best pop songs of the year, and hearing them in the same set was the clearest evidence yet that those other artists made a mistake passing. They closed with "Shy Girl," their biggest hit to date and a colossal earworm. 

What surprised me most was how little irony there was in any of it. For all the face paint, crone voices, and clowns, Haute & Freddy never once signalled that they were above the material or winking past it at the audience. "We are humble jesters," Haute told the crowd, and she seemed to mean it.

Somewhere, a few pop stars who turned these songs down are the ones who ought to be applying the clownface. Haute and Freddy have the last laugh.