Today I went to my very first concert. I saw Amanda Palmer in The Famous Spiegeltent. Something that I never thought could happen for so many reasons.
I finally constructed a letter, wrote it out, and sealed it with a black satin bow.
I decided what to wear.
I still didn’t know what to say.
I got all over 200km of the way there.
The Spiegeltent itself is amazing. I can see exactly why Amanda loves the place so much, I have made a promise that I will go back next year, and the year after that wherever I may be. The smell of the place clung to my clothes for three days, the smell of wood and a thousand art-loving peoples’ perfumes. I was treated to more than the magical evening I had imagined, nothing compares to the moment by moment experience of actually being there. Don’t you just love it when the reality is better than the fantasy?
I had wondered if she was going to do many (if any) Dolls’ songs since she was on her own. But she did. One of the funniest moments of the night was when she played the intro to Coin Operated Boy and when it was the cue to start she put her mouth to me microphone and with a slight smirk opened her mouth and said nothing. The crowd on the other hand went right on ahead and yelled “COIN!” before realising what had happened and dissolving into a fit of giggles. So she started the song again but faltered and remarked with joy and surprise “Coin O- my god this is going to be a total sing-a-long!” she started the song again and it made it all the way to its finish with the accompaniment of some “Coin Operated Performers” (care of the equally entertaining Danger Ensemble).
The show concluded with Girl A and with a rendition of Rhianna’s Umbrella (complete with umberellas and champagne) with Amanda miming and playing the ukulele with great zeal. She marched up the aisle to the exit, and very soon after the audience called her back for an encore. And the strongest memory that I have of the whole concert was just then, when she was standing at the bar near the exit, half leaning on it, with that mixture of emotions that she always summarises her longer blogs with, melancholy, happy, real, exhausted and tired, (yes, both exhausted and tired, two different meanings) and there were three cameras, two with tripods and one hand-held, and all the people who couldn’t find seats (and believe me the place was packed, I took a picture of the line, and this was when it was still light, more than half an hour before the concert started, and I think it doubled in length before they let us in)
And these people stood in a perfect arc around her, cameras and faces pointed at her, while she looked at them like that. And it just really struck me for some reason, both good and bad, and stayed with me above all else, for what I feel will be a long time.
But she did come back and deliver a very touching encore before announcing where she would be afterwards for the signing, and complimenting us on what a wonderful crowd we had been and how we had dispelled any anxiety she had about this set of shows and how much she loves
So once the concert finished everyone filed outside very quickly and in an orderly fashion (I never cease to be amazed at the DD fans, I mean, have you ever seen anyone on The Shadow Box fight? It is still a forum on the internet). And I noticed with some surprise that Amanda had security guys, standing around looking important and authoritative, wearing all black and talking on walkie-talkies, standing behind a red velvet rope and all. I wonder if they were and installation of the Spiegeltent or actually hers? And I also wonder what she thinks about the whole arrangement, and how it contrasts to when she was first starting out. They were really nice people too, one of them smiled at my mother, and she spent the rest of the night musing that she was probably old enough to be his mother (an exaggeration, I’m sure).
So I waited patiently in the line for the signings with my letter clasped in my cold little hands, feeling a little bit awkward since getting something signed was the one and only point of this line. But I had undertaken a veritable pilgrimage to get to this point and give her my letter, and I was going to do that if it was last thing I did. I watched the people in front of me intently and nervously. And then it was the turn of the three girls in front of me, they were all obviously friends and had come to the concert together. I think they were the ones who threw a tie onto the stage earlier in the show, and were yelling out how they loved Amanda in the silence because I recognised one of their voices. The first one had her Dresden Dolls Companion signed and did much jumping up and down and was crying just a little bit, and Amanda remarked upon this with a tone of concern and maybe a little shock before giving the girl a very long hug (one of those where you don’t know who is doing the hanging on and think they must both change their minds half way through). The second girl got a hug too and said a few words about how much she loved Amanda (definitely the girl from before) and the last girl asked for and stole Amanda’s beer in the same instant. And then it was my turn. But Amanda was watching the girls scuttle off with her beer and drink it, adding uneasily that she hoped that they were eighteen (they looked about fourteen) and thought that it was illegal. (I later thought, isn’t this intriguing, she actually knows the legal drinking age in
Of course my mother couldn’t leave it be and told Amanda that I was her biggest fan and almost let slip that I had written a song about her. Oh and she spent the rest of the night haranguing me that I wasn’t outgoing enough. I didn’t quite look back at Amanda after my mother had said that but I think the look would have conveyed something like “Oh yeah sure, that’s what they all say. Pfff.” So thanks Mum.
And another thing that really struck me about this night was the city. Everything was still alive at this time (about 1:30 am). People (granted none of them were sober or sane) were still walking around and having a great time. There were taxis and bars everywhere, not to mention a McDonalds and a 7/11 every 15 feet. But it was alive, the night was warm and buzzing and it really made me want to stay there. To live there. This was what drew me to the city life originally, I just love it for some reason. There was also something freaky and commercial about it, the 7/11s, and the lights, there was this eerie perma-daylight on
This was the middle of the night and that was the view. I wondered how anyone could live in that city day in day out and ever get bored with it, ever walk past something like that. Then I guess the city is designed for the easily bored masses. I never could though.
I attempted to record the show but it became… interesting. When it becomes fairly loud the microphone blows and there is this noise like agitated ripping canvas over the top of the track, especially when the audience is applauding, I ignore it and try to think of it as an applause-o-meter, it’s very effective.
Listening to this recording which possesses much… uh, character. I had an idea for this piece of art, a drawing, and since I was doing nothing else worthwhile (primarily writing any half decent songs) I decided to just do it and make it happen. And it almost (and I mean very surprisingly close to) turned out how I had envisioned it in my head. I thought about my little speakers that only play the concert at a very low volume, and how they make it sound like she is so far away giving the performance (and I was actually surprised at how loud and close she was in reality), or like she is very very small. And so came the idea that a very little Amanda was playing the smallest of grand pianos right inside my speakers. But inside they would look like a very grungy little club. I posted it to The Shadow Box, the Dresden Dolls community forum, since they have a section for this kind of thing and I actually got some complimentary replies.
And, and, in other news. She replied to me. She sent me and email. It said something short and sweet, but I knew it was her and I knew she meant what she said. So I naturally replied to her reply, unfortunately I got her email three days late, but I mentioned this and apologised. But then, weeks later I realised that my email account was registered to my internet pseudonym, so it would come up with that and not the name I told her. So I changed my account details to my real first name. And sent it off again, telling her my mistake. Oh but get this, I changed the wrong thing. Its your sending profile/from address thingy that matters, so I changed that and sent off that same email for the third time. What a fiasco.
But so ends the saga of Amanda for now.
Ooh ooh, apart from that very strange dream that I had with her in it. She and two of her male friends, of which neither were Brian, and one snappish blonde female friend were sitting with me and an old friend from high school drama class who I didn’t recognise at first. Amanda was growing her eyebrows back in but was having a bit of trouble with the outer edges and so was peering at her reflection in the marble bench top and drawing them in with reddish brown eye pencil. The only other bit with her that I remember was that she and her friends and the guy I knew from drama class all started singing this song that I didn’t know, they then changed to one that I vaguely knew but they were singing it in rounds and I could only make sense of it by copying that guy. But all the same her blonde friend whispered to the man next to her something about me wailing like a cat when I tried to sing. And I thought, shit I don’t know this song, I should suggest we do something else, oh but that would reveal my age, eek, I don’t want them knowing how old I am. Strange.
☆Anika☆
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