Day 12 — Whatever tickles my fancy: Amanda Palmer

Saturday night, the Boyf and I had just gathered all the props for a poached ginger plums cook-up to have noms while watching Dr Who when there, on our twitter streams was 140 characters from @amandapalmer offering another 150 tickets to the previously-sold-out Evelyn Evelyn gig.  Dr Who and spiced plums were put on hold until Sunday [where they worked perfectly with each other] and we got on a bus all the way across the city to see if we could get ourselves a pair of these new tickets.

It would a terrible story if it ended there, if we didn’t get the tickets and we took another bus back to where we come from.  There is, however, no volcano-disrupted-transport-links between my flat and Oran Mor so we made it and got a pair of tickets.  [Extra tickets #3 and #4, if I'm not mistaken].

We also got some beautiful wooden flowers from this beautiful creature:

via: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisdonia/

While we made it across the city, 50% of Evelyn Evelyn and two of the three support acts were still stuck on the other side of the big cloud of volcano ash; that wasn’t going to stop Amanda Palmer though.  With the power of twitter to aid her, AFP got a pair of support acts [Bitter Ruin and Edward and the Itch],the instruments and props needed for the full Evelyn Evelyn show and although she admitted it may be a glorious mess, she did it.

There is no denying that the gig was anything but a traditional gig; her crew were stranded overseas so she roped in the audience to help [apparently I looked responsible enough for her to ask me to help with the webcasting. [Responsible? Me?  It's the geeky spectacles, they lure everyone in - even rockstars.]  I didn’t actually do any webcasting because some be-hatted boy completely bogarted the Mac].

The show itself was supposed to be Evelyn Evelyn  – a darkly humorous musical theatre piece focussing on a pair of stage-shy conjoined twins and their evil showbiz manager.  There was also to be three “support acts”, Amanda Palmer, Jason Webley and Sxip Shirey.  [The "support act" inverted commas as the conjoined twins are played by Palmer and Webley with Shirey as a their manager.]

We did get the Evelyn Evelyn show – there is no denying that.  AFP performed the whole show more-or-less by herself, playing all the roles, singing and playing the instruments.

She did have a little help from a time-delayed Jason Webley skype-ing from her apartment…

via: http://www.flickr.com/photos/satanpolaroid/

…some back-up from Bitter Ruin…

via: http://www.flickr.com/photos/satanpolaroid/

… and an audience-genrated puppet-show.

via: http://www.flickr.com/photos/satanpolaroid

The internet, being the kind of place that it is, has homed a number of people who did not enjoy the show [a minority, but a vocal minority].  Their main complaint seems to be that Amanda Palmer didn’t do an Amanda Palmer show, she did the Evelyn Evelyn show.  I don’t understand how this can be a complaint.  We bought tickets for Evelyn Evelyn, to hear Evelyn Evelyn songs and to see the Evelyn Evelyn show. That is technically what we got; it may not have been as accomplished or polished as it would have been had the whole band been there along with all their extensive stage set – but there is no denying we got the show that we advertised.

Had Amanda Palmer turned up and done an Amanda Palmer gig playing Amanda Palmer songs, people may not have outright complained because they still got a show, but they didn’t get what they we going for.  I think you would be in more of a place to complain if she had done an off-the-cuff Amanda Palmer show.

Sure, it was glorious mess and a part of me would still like to have seen a full all-action Evelyn Evelyn show; but instead I saw something that will never be repeated. I still got the show, I still got the songs, I got and saw more  audience-interaction than in every other gig I’ve ever been to before – combined – and I loved every single moment of it.

…and this time nobody got frenched by a puppet.

An Internet Meme: How Original

Ah, memes.  Could there be anything more traditional in the 21st century?

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Fall in love; go to church [okay, I’ve done it before, but not in a loooong time]; had Christmas without my family.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn’t make any, nor will I be making any.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Beetle squeezed Ladybug out through her lady parts.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What countries did you visit?
Englandshire.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
Stability.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
January 31st / February 1st.  There was goodness involved.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
It sounds lame to say winning NaNoWriMo again, doesn’t it?  How about understanding the rules of Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock?  That’s just geeky, isn’t it?

9. What was your biggest failure?
Having a safe and comfortable living situation?

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Erm, yes.  I got diagnosed and treated for depression.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Grande Skinny Extra-hot Dark Cherry Latte and Lemon and Poppy-seed muffin.  Gooood times.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
The Boyf for being all kinds of awsum and putting up with me and all the stuff that happened this year.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
My Ex-Flatmate, his Violent Sidekick.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Nowhere specific, general day-to-day living.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The Indelicates, yasai katsu curry, the butterflies in my tummy which arrive thirty seconds before the megabus arrives and the I see The Boyf again, MarioKart, notebooks, really little things.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Amanda Palmer: Leeds United

or Tim Minchin: Not Perfect

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
(a) Happier – without a doubt
(b) Thinner – also doubt-free
(c) About the same

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Dancing without a care.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Not making decisions

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
With The Boyf and his family.  My first Christmas without my family.

21. How will you be spending New Year’s?
With The Boyf.  It’ll probably be a snoozing-in-front-of-the-tv-job.

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?
Oh, hellz yes.

23. How many one-night stands?
None.

24. What was your favourite TV programme?
I only really watched one anything near religiously: The Big Bang Theory.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Yes.  And the less said about said individual the better.  I can’t wait until I am simply apathetic towards him.  Hating is too strong and too consuming an emotion.

26. What was the best book you read?
Factually speaking: Stasiland was brilliant; blurring the line between fact and fiction The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay; in YA it was An Abundance Of Katherines for its geekiness and in kids’ books – like every other book list this year – The Graveyard Book.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
It’s been a fairly quiet year musically for me – for a change – I have been rather enjoying Calamateur, and I re-discovered AFP and the Dolls’ back catalogue.

28. What did you want and get?
A new job in a new city.

29. What did you want and not get?
My friend to act like it.

30. What was your favourite film of this year?
I saw so many this year; I truly believe I’ve seen more films at the cinema this year than I have in the rest of my life combined.  Therefore a top five, in no particular order: Moon, Milk, Doubt, Fantastic Mr Fox and Duplicity [What?!  It was just a good clean funny romp]. Coraline would have been in it, but we saw it in 3D, in the very front row making it difficult to see and with a theatre full of under-sevens.  It probably would’ve been top five if we’d seen it in a more conducive to film-viewing situation.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was twenty-seven.  I went to the zoo, played mini-golf, got a ukulele and generally acted a bit like an excited eight year old boy.  It was awsum.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Year-round availability of dark cherry syrup in Starbucks.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Polka dot dresses and stripy socks.

34. What kept you sane?
Initially Citalopram, then Fluoxetine and now Venlafaxine.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Tim Minchin.  I don’t know if it’s the looks, the funniness, the singing or any combination of the three.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Not that many really.  I got irate at a number of Daily-Mail-reading-racist taxi drivers because – especially in Aberdeen – those “sponging-immigrants” they are complaining about are highly qualified and doing the menial work which no one here wants to do.

37. Who did you miss?
The Boyf – every single time we needed to traverse the country to see each other without the aid of google chat.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
I met a number of new people this year, the best is Ladybug because she giggles, apparently likes me and when she poops I get to give her back.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
When the waste material hits the spinning turbine you’ll know who your real friends are.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
“There will be feasting and dancing in Jerusalem next year.
I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.”
Ah… Mountain Goats.

Indelicates / Amanda Palmer [and Neil Gaiman]

Standing in the queue for the Amanda Palmer gig The Boyf turns to me and says “Last one to spot Neil Gaiman pays the bus fare”.  Sounded like a plan.  In the end I didn’t pay for the bus fare, the scraggly-haired writer was swiftly spotted while we were still in the same spot in the queue.  We were both surprisingly restrained, neither of us ran after him shouting We luvz yoooo, instead we both just did a double triple quadruple take and probably stood about mouths agape.  That wouldn’t be the last time we were to spot Scary Trousers that night, but first we had some music and nudey dancing to get through.

Last year I loved The Indelicates debut album, I think I ranked it my favourite album of oh-eight with good reason: they’re a slightly more politicised and orchestral version of Art Brut but with an extra girl on vocals.  Simon was vitriolically, angrily bitter; Julia was gorgeous – as ever – and other three…well, the guitarist is more than reminiscent of Pete Wentz [which is not a good thing, the leaping, gurning fool], the drummer looks familiar [JJ72?  Grange Hill?] and they’ve got a girl wielding a bass that’s nearly the same size as her.

Fall-Out-Boy-alike aside they were good, better than good, although I do fear I was that one weirdo at the gig who’s there for the support band.  I have the album, I have another copy of the album on vinyl, I knew all the words, I was the one who geeked out when they played the b-side Waiting For Pete Doherty to Die.

Of course, if The Indelicates were good, then given Amanda Fuckin’ Palmer was still to come, the evening was only going to get better.  But before then we had Zen Zen Zo who are a naked contemporary dance troop.  I think they’re best summed up by the girl acting like a twelve year old boy standing behind us: “Boobies,  boobies, boobies”.  Maybe I’m just a contemporary dance philistine, but it didn’t do anything for me.

Amanda Fuckin’ Palmer: theatrical darlin’, cabaret punkette, legs to die for, att-i-tude and yet, still there’s something coyly sweet about her.  Who Killed Amanda Palmer? is a bombastic album, from the thuddering in-your-face of Astronaut, Runs In The Family, Oasis and Leeds United to the melancholia of Have To Drive And Ampersand.  It’s a hard line for a show to deliver the both grandeur and intimacy, but AFP did.  The horn-section-led euphoria of the opening Missed Me, Astronaut and Runs In The Family almost seamlessly led into Amanda, alone at her keyboard lamenting.

Then Neil Gaiman showed up again to read us a story, which I shouldn’t say was the best thing about the whole show but it was pretty damn amazing: Neil Gaiman reading us a story which he’d written about Amanda Palmer.  Awsum.

The round things off we came full circle bringing back The Indelicates and the horn section to blitz through Leeds United, Oasis and then finally Let The Sunshine In.

What more could you ask for from a show?  I mean it had a ukulele two ukuleles.  Let me reiterate: Awsum.