A couple of weeks ago I got talking to these two women at my day job who were carrying instrument cases and going to the BBC.After my work I-pod managed to segue from The Nutcracker Suite into Kevin Coyne, the younger of the two asked me if I was a musician to which I replied "no, but I am a music writer" and before you know it she was offering to put me on the guest list of her next London show at The Roundhouse.
At which point while saying "yes," I had to ask her who she was? She replied "Amanda Palmer" and the penny dropped!! So that's why and how we ended up going to see Amanda Palmer with VIP press passes and I got to find out what all the fuss is about, as up to this point I think I only have a couple of Dresden Dolls songs on compilations.
We got into the Roundhouse fairly early but not early enough it seems, as we missed 3 acts and Amanda performing Creep while helping to introduce the early acts who all performed in the old Vaudeville style of getting one or two songs and onto the next act. Which I have to say works brilliantly well, as you don't get bored with anyon. As we arrived, Amanda was introducing Tom Milson and his mop of blue hair. He played Amanda's Keyboards that have 'Kurt Weill' in big letters where it should read Korg. The song he did, Pipes, was OK; nothing to go mad over but a pretty decent song.
He was followed by BITTER RUIN:a male/female duo who played a brilliantly twisted song called Trust all about why or how you should trust your partner as they screw around. They had so much passion between them that I really want to go and see them when they next play in London.
Then, while they got the stage ready for the main set, some members of Perhaps Contraption busked at the back of the Roundhouse, slowly walking round the back of the hall as they played two songs acoustically on brass instruments which was cool and a bit unusual.
Then the house lights went down and Des O'Connor came onstage. No, don't panic, not that Des but the Gypsy Hotel and Club Antichrist regular MC and Performer Des O'Connor. He whipped out his ukelele and played a very cool version of Little Miss Dysmorphia that really got the crowd going a lot more than the last time I heard him play it at the Gypsy Hotel a few months ago. Then at the end of the song while everyone was cheering he then made sure to really get us worked up to fever pitch as he introduced "Amanda Fucking Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra" and with an entrance like that what could go wrong?
I'll pause here to thank the good folk at www.setlist.fm for help with the song titles as the band launched into an instrumental opener that is apparently called A Grand Theft Intermission. It had the effect of getting a large part of the three quarters full Roundhouse going.
Amanda was wearing a very cool looking corset and Brown cords as well as some very cool skin-tight gauntlet type things on her lower arms. The band, with barely a pause, went into Do It With A Rockstar, that almost everyone around us was able to sing along to. A pretty damn good song it is too as Amanda takes us into her world and everyone here was more than along for the ride.
Amanda likes to talk between songs and we rarely had any dead space. This is cool as having thanked us all for showing up for the first of many times this evening and having thanked the other acts they then did The Killing Type. I hope no one present is in that category; it's a damn good song that really ramped things up a bit and got me thinking who she reminded me of most live. At this point in the set it was probably Concrete Blonde around the time of Walking in London or Blood Letters.
Want It Back? You may well do, but as is pointed out in the lyrics "you threw it away." But then the girl next to us decided to take her top off and although I'd never ask her to I might have wanted her to put it back on but only as a matter of taste not because she shouldn't take her top off if she wants to.
Amanda told us a story about the last time she played the Roundhouse with the Dresden Dolls before she sang Missed Me which was the first song I vaguely recognized. The band did a very cool version of it with a slow introduction.
We then got a hilarious story about her meeting Liam Monkey Boy at Glastonbury and asking him if he would come on stage at the end of her song Oasis and present her with a bouquet. I believe his reply was what you'd have expected, still a great intro to an OK song about Oasis and yes she got just the reaction you'd expect to comments about them - we all hate 'em!! The best part of the song though was when it broke down near the end into a verse and chorus of Twist & Shout that had obvious echoes of some Scousers rather than the Manc terror.
Quite what the Zombie Astronaut was doing in the next song I have no idea. But then it had the sort of interplay between her ass and guitar players that really worked well, but then they had been solid throughout the show. Bottom Feeder had a long introduction from Amanda but then she seems to relish her reputation for baiting and being baited by the press. It didn't matter to the crowd at the Roundhouse as she could do little wrong.
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She pulled Tom Milson back onstage for a go at Sufjan Stevens' song For The Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti and I have to say it reminded me just how much I don't get Sufjan. It was by far the worst song of the set and I have to say no matter how much Amanda bigged him up I didn't get what was special about Tom either.
Then we got to the solo section of the show, which was a bit like the solo sections of John Cale or Johnny Thunders' shows where a lot of the audience really want the band stuff only and yet many of the best songs are in the solo section. Dilemma. In this case Amanda played piano and sang Map Of Tasmania which I'd never have guessed as a song title.
Then it was Bigger on the Inside and one of the best songs of the set The Bed Song that I put down as 'we don't have sex anymore' that could easily be reworked into a MOR soul tune with a hilarious video. Amanda then introduced a special guest Kate Miller Heidke who a little googling shows recently toured with the Ben Folds Five which explains why I had no idea who she was. That said the song she played solo, Are You Fucking Kidding Me? was very funny indeed about an ex wanting to be added to her Facebook page.
It was a cool interlude that let Amanda sit down for a couple of minutes before she brought the band back on and the bass player told us his dad had played at the Roundhouse 41 years ago. He left the question of "who with?" unanswered. She also pulled onstage Sxip Shirey and the cast of Limbo to do some acrobatics and join in the fun. It certainly amped up everyone on Lost and was one of the shows' highlights that was followed by another one courtesy of a great long version of Pulp's Common People that went on for quite a bit but had everyone singing along, practically screaming the lyrics back at her.
We then went a bit further into Yorkshire for Leeds United. I have no idea if it has anything to do with football or the thuggery of Leeds fans but it saw the addition of Perhaps Contraption to the band and practically everyone else they could fit onto the stage to help bring a great set to a close.
The place went nuts and it seemed to take a good while before Amanda came back for a well-deserved encore. She came back on in a Kimono and gave a long intro explaining that we would be hearing a brand new song finished about an hour before tonight's show that was a reply to the Daily Mail's review of her Glastonbury performance where her Breast escaped from her Bra. It was last seen on the run just outside Castle Cary!!
She was shocked that the review didn't mention her music or singing at all, only her breast. So we then got what could easily have been a companion piece to John Cooper Clarke's You'll never see a nipple in the Daily Express, but was set to a tune that reminded me of David Bowie's Little Bombardier as she retorted with Dear Daily Mail and got the audience going and cheering along at all the little revelations in the song including halfway through when she took off her Kimono and completed the song wearing nothing except her Gauntlets! It's a great riposte to the paper and well worth finding on YouTube where the video already as several hundred thousand views in just a few days.
The rest of the band then came back on for the second encore and they closed the show with the Dresden Dolls' Girl Anachronism for which Amanda was wearing her bra and panties as well as the gauntlets. It was a great finale to a very good show indeed.
We missed the ninja busking performance outside after the gig but went away more than happy Amanda Palmer is well worth seeing live. Just forget about the hype and go and enjoy a really great live act.
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