Amanda Palmer at the Roundhouse (12/07/2013)

I’ve been a supporter of Amanda Palmer’s music for a long time now. Heard a few tracks from the first Dresden Dolls album when it was first released, and really liked them, but it wasn’t until Neil Gaiman – one of my favourite writers of anything ever – started dating her and talking about her on his website that I really looked into her catalogue (she might hate that... I hope not).

Since then, I haven’t been able to shut up about not only how fantastic her music is, but also the way she’s always striving to break new ground when it comes to financing her music and getting out to her fans, actively using social media as often her sole marketing tool (and yet still managing to break into the Billboard Top 10 albums), finding new and fun ways to include her fans in things – even incorporating those who also play an instrument into her show in exchange for “beer and hugs” (and for those opposed to that idea, if these people didn’t think this a good idea, they didn’t have to volunteer), and also her honesty and openness that goes beyond any other musician I’ve ever heard of. Not many of them will be comfortable pouring their heart and soul out to everyone who reads her blog, but that’s what she does all the time.

Of course, not everyone appreciates this kind of thing, and it’s led to seemingly her every action being on the receiving end of abuse from some particularly hateful and nasty users of the internet. People who don’t realise that the person they’re aiming their hatred at is not really a “celebrity”, but a real life person. Of course, it’s easy to say that you shouldn’t pay attention to some of these people, but as someone who has received some of this (nowhere near the scale that she has, obviously... no one knows who I am beyond the few people who follow me on Twitter/contribute to some of the message boards I’ve posted on), I can attest to the fact that sometimes as easy as ignoring them sounds, actually doing it is sometimes far more complicated than that. ‘Bigger On The Inside’ - the first of two new songs that Amanda played on Friday night at Camden’s fantastic Roundhouse - dealt with this and other things that had been happening in her life in the last few months directly, ending the song that she played alone on the ukulele in floods of tears, before moving onto her piano and playing the equally emotional ‘The Bed Song’. In between, she commented on someone who had passed out in the front row, “he had too many feelings”.

That’s not to say that her and her band – The Grand Theft Orchestra – played a depressing, soul-searching show. This is was just a particularly affecting and calm moment in what was an absolute riot of a rock show performed by a group of natural born entertainers. The entertainment began before the doors had even opened with the upbeat almost punky brass band Perhaps Contraption performing outside the venue whilst people were still queuing up before moving onto the floor and continued playing surrounded by the crowd as the Roundhouse began filling up. This is the kind of unorthodox approach to a show that Amanda has been known for since her days as one half of The Dresden Dolls, but this was my first time witnessing it for myself (for a multitude of reasons, including money problems, which even prevented me from being able to contribute to her historic Kickstarter campaign for ‘Theatre Is Evil’ last year).

A little while later, Amanda herself appeared on the balcony to serenade the audience with a ukulele cover of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ which turned into one of the best mass singalongs I’ve ever been witness to, before the evening turned into a full-on party with a multitude of special guests taking the stage to play a song or two each – Jherek Bischoff of the Grand Theft Orchestra played some of his own songs, before The Simple Pleasure (led by Chad Raines – also a member of the Grand Theft Orchestra) played their brand of strange disco meets T. Rex music (the T. Rex thing may just be because Chad bears a similarity to Marc Bolan... not sure). Other guests included Bitter Ruin (a man, a woman and an acoustic guitar, who sound very nice and timid when they speak, but can bring the roof down with their fantastic voices) singing ‘Trust’, Youtube singer/songwriter Tom Milson singing his song ‘Pipes’, and Desmond O’Connor playing ‘Little Miss Dysmorphia’.

Then it was onto the main event, with the instrumental ‘A Grand Theft Intermission’ leading directly into the raucous ‘Do It With A Rockstar’ – and already, Amanda was in the crowd, singing most of the song amongst her fans whilst the security looked on seemingly terrified that she wouldn’t be coming back. Come back she did however, playing other cuts from ‘Theatre Is Evil’ (‘The Killing Type/’Want It Back’), before heading into a full-band version of the Dresden Dolls fan favourite ‘Missed Me’. A few songs later, she was in the crowd again, this time crowdsurfing a full circuit of the Roundhouse with an absolutely massive trail following her as she sang a note-perfect version of ‘Bottomfeeder’.

One of my highlights of the night came when ‘Delilah’ – another Dresden Dolls song – was performed with fantastic back-up from Bitter Ruin’s Georgia Train. After another, heartwarming duet with Tom Milsom, she broke into ‘Map Of Tasmania’... a hilarious anthem and ode to pubic hair that caused another look of distress on the security guard directly in front of me as he finally started to piece together exactly what she was singing about. It’s a sign of her versatility that this could be followed up by the aforementioned ‘Bigger On The Inside’ which made me wish I could get onstage and give her a massive hug.

Other guest appearances showed up during the set (Kate Miller-Heidke singing her song ‘Are You Fucking Kidding Me?’, and Sxip Shirey and the cast of his music/circus mash-up Limbo providing a preview of what can be expected from his show, and Palmer’s cover of ‘Common People’ marks the first time I’ve ever enjoyed a Pulp song.

What came during the encores has already been doing the rounds on the internet since as soon as the show ended. It was a spectacular take-down of the Daily Mail for their “coverage” of her set at Glastonbury which consisted entirely of talking about what she was wearing and her boob falling out of her bra, which focused on the hypocrisy of talking only about this with female artists, when they actually talk about male artists’ music, and showcased exactly why a picture of her breasts is not nearly as shocking as they think with her performing half of the song completely naked. (See also, the media coverage of a Beyonce performance being on her facial expressions during certain parts of the show). There’s already been more coverage of this than on the entirety of the rest of the show... as it should be, I suppose, but part of the reason I’m writing this is to point out she did a lot more that night than just take her clothes off and call out a tabloid.

The night ended on a blistering performance on another Dresden Dolls fan favourite, the schizophrenic ‘Girl Anachronism’, which had the crowd possibly jumping around even more than they had the rest of the night – and Amanda Palmer fans are one enthusiastic crowd, let me tell you. There’s a lot of genuine love for that woman in that audience, and they hung on her every word... they were even willing to be quiet when she asked them to. I’ve been to a lot of gigs over the years, and suffered a lot of assholes in crowds, but I’m pleased to say that at this show, with one minor exception (a couple complaining that people were too ‘normal’, ‘pretty’ or ‘blonde’ to be real fans, and shouldn’t be there), everyone I saw was extremely nice.

Except apparently that wasn’t the end... both Bitter Ruin and Amanda played “ninja gigs” outside the venue as people were leaving, but we were already on the train home by the time that happened. It’s a shame, but I’m glad that I managed to finally get to see this fantastic lady live. Thanks to Samir Talwar for selling me his tickets as he unfortunately wasn’t able to go. I’m now wishing even more than before that I was able to see her before now.

From Balcony Before Show
Creep (Radiohead cover from ‘Amanda Palmer Performs The Popular Hits Of Radiohead On Her Magical Ukulele’)

Main Set
A Grand Theft Intermission (from ‘Theatre Is Evil’)
Do It With A Rockstar (from ‘Theatre Is Evil’)
The Killing Type (from ‘Theatre Is Evil’)
Want It Back (from ‘Theatre Is Evil’)
Missed Me (The Dresden Dolls song from ‘The Dresden Dolls’)
Oasis (from ‘Who Killed Amanda Palmer’)
Astronaut (from ‘Who Killed Amanda Palmer’)
Bottomfeeder (from ‘Theatre Is Evil’)
Delilah (The Dresden Dolls song from ‘Yes, Virginia...’, featuring Georgia Train from Bitter Ruin)
For The Windows In Paradise, For The Fatherless In Ypsilanti (Sufjan Stevens cover, featuring Tom Milsom)
Map Of Tasmania (from ‘Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under’)
Bigger On The Inside (new song)
The Bed Song (from ‘Theatre Is Evil’)
Are You Fucking Kidding Me? (performed by Kate Miller-Heidke)
Lost (from ‘Theatre Is Evil’)
Common People (Pulp cover)
Leeds United (from ‘Who Killed Amanda Palmer’)

Encores
Dear Daily Mail (new song)
Girl Anachronism (The Dresden Dolls song from ‘The Dresden Dolls’)