Life returned to normal for me again for a while after Byron and Brisbane, well that’s a lie because my Aunt’s wedding occurred in that time, but the day after the wedding, on the 27th February, it was time to hit the Pretty Peepers Cabaret Show at the Imperial Hotel where Amanda Palmer was DJing.
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| Ian gave Eric a tshirt at Pretty Peepers |
The night was ummm interesting to say the least. From a Burlesque clown, to drag shows and two words BEEF CURTAINS. I won’t actually explain the beef curtains reference. You had to be there. Amanda also played two songs on her Uke. Her new $600 Uke that proceeded to break just before she was about the start the second song!
She played Gaga, Palmer, Madonna which went down a treat with the audience. I think that was the first audience I have been a part of that wasn’t made up of all die-hard Amanda Palmer fans so it was kind of cool to see their reactions! A few more artists performed and then she closed the evening with Creep which as always turned into a massive sing-a-long.
After the show Ian (who I met at my BBQ) and I went and chatted to Eric (tour manager Extraordinaire) for a bit. Eric has become my new favourite person. He is so lovely and such a happy person it makes me happy to be around him. Not to mention the fact that he always seems to make time for people when in reality he probably had a shit load of stuff to be doing rather than chatting to us.
After a while we were told the venue was closing so we found Amanda who I believe was busy making fans out of everyone in the bar and said goodbye and off we went. I didn't actually include Pretty Peepers as a gig or Ninja gig in the tally of shows I saw this year...
A couple of days later, on the 2nd March I took off to Adelaide for the Fringe Festival.
Alecia, a Melbournite who I met for the first time at my BBQ, and I had impulsively decided to go and got accommodation together and tickets to the same shows. When I first got there Alecia wasn’t due to arrive for a few hours so I met up with Mel Hughes,who I met at last year’s festival, (she is also a poet and had shows in the Fringe) for a drink and a lovely vegan lunch.
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| Evelyn Evelyn |
Once Alecia arrived we headed to the Garden Of Unearthly Delights to see Evelyn Evelyn. While waiting in line Eric asked everyone in the queue if they had any questions about the universe for Evelyn Evelyn and then Steven Mitchell Wright asked for any requests as the twins are able to perform any song they've heard once, I asked for Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds...
I don’t really know what I could say about this show to truly do it justice.
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| Evleyn Evelyn & Stage Boy Eric |
Evelyn Evelyn, or Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley are amazingly talented. For two people who exude so much confidence on stage and command of the audience at their own shows, they were extremely convincing as a set of awkward and incredibly shy conjoined twin sisters.
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| Evelyn & Evelyn shed a tear over Bimba & Kimba |
Their Q&A session had me laughing so hard I think I got a better ab workout than doing 100 sit ups in a row. The requests thing wasn't actually real unless someone asked them to play chopsticks ... or Gaga ... but it got the audience laughing!
The musical performances were all brilliant, as well as the puppet show and well everything really. Eric as “stage boy” and Steven Mitchell Wright as the MC/Narrator also killed it.
I can’t stress enough just how convincing Amanda and Jason are as Evelyn Evelyn. They took on their roles perfectly. So much so it would be easy to forget that Evelyn and Evelyn aren’t actually real.
There is nothing more you could really want from a show; it was definitely the highlight of my Fringe experience.
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| the twins rock out |
Once Evelyn Evelyn finished I MET JASON WEBLEY! He is such an amazing performer and off stage he is so humble. I got a quick photo with him and some fliers to hand out to promote his upcoming Adelaide shows. He also signed my Evelyn Evelyn Uke!
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| Love Will Tear Us Apart |
Alecia and I then went back to our room to chill for a bit until we went to see The Spaces Between by The Jane Austen Argument. Despite a minor hiccup which led to Alecia and I turning up late and totally disturbing the show in the very beginning, the show was very impressive!
Last year The Jane Austen Argument totally blew me away with their show “Where Was I”. This year’s show “The Spaces Between” is even better. They have grown as artists and developed an amazing relationship as a duo and it really shows. Both Tom and Jen are amazing at what they do and combined they totally explode brains!
The Spaces Between” has it all; from humour to heartbreak! It is a journey, and an experience to watch.
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| Ninja Gigging in The Garden Of Unearthly Delights |
The Spaces Between is a must see and I think they deserve to win Best Cabaret Adelaide Fringe for the second year in a row!
Once the show finished we made a mad dash back the The Garden Of Unearthly Delights for Amanda and Jason’s Ninja gig. We all headed to the giant wooden box and Jason kicked things off. When it was Amanda’s turn of course she wasn’t content just standing there playing… No, she needed to be on top of the smaller wooden box, or the box office as it was. When Jason decided to jump up there with her and it wobbled she decided the small box wasn’t safe enough and got on the huge box because that makes total sense.
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| Amanda mounts a box |
Anyway the gig was a lot of fun. There were sing-a-longs and violin VS trombone (I think it was trombone or some deep sounding instrument) where Jason had half the audience make the violin sound and the other the trombone sound and we had to compete for who was better. I was a violin and I think we failed. Jason is such an amazing performer. He often appears to be in his own little world. It’s a world I think I live in whenever I am around live music that I love. I can’t wait to see him again playing at Camelot in Sydney on March 18th. http://www.trybooking.com/Booking/BookingEventSummary.aspx?eid=8664
The ninja gig ended with the drinking song. I am not sure if Amanda actually did that thing where you point up into the sky, look at the end of your finger and spin around because, well she was on a gigantic box and I couldn’t see her, but I am pretty sure Jason did it from his smaller but still alarmingly tall box. I am surprised Eric hasn’t had a heart attack; or a nervous breakdown yet with the shit Amanda gets into on tour… potential injury or death causing shit!
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| ye all hail us for i am the queen of box and i am the king of wood |
After the ninja gig, Amanda and Jason signed stuff and took photos with people. Again I didn’t go up to Amanda because I knew there’d be another opportunity to do so that other people wouldn’t get. I have made that conscious decision a lot over this tour actually. I have felt awkward going up to her because I figure she played at my fucking house and I was able to have a 5 minute conversation with her uninterrupted (other than by my brother but that’s ok). Whenever I have had the opportunity to talk to her since, I have so many things I want to say but all that comes out of my mouth is thank you, or that was great because of the swarms of people all waiting to get their piece of Amanda so I just figure I am happy that I have had the opportunity to see her live so many times, I don’t NEED to talk to her every time. I had however printed out the previous blog I posted, you know the one where I reveal wayyyy to much about myself, to give to her so I gave it to Eric and then Alecia and I headed back to our hotel room.
The following day, March 3rd, Alecia went wedding dress shopping and I looked around Adelaide a bit. I found Vegan cheesecake! It was delicious. So delicious I can’t believe it was Vegan. If it wasn’t the people who sold it to me are going to hell!
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| Before the rude teacher stole the audience |
Alecia and I then met up at the Adelaide Fringe Caravan in Rundle Mall to watch The Jane Austen Argument play a couple of songs from their “The Spaces Between” show as a preview for potential audiences.
A big group of young school children led by their teacher turned up and immediately I started wondering how long they’d stick around for seeing as though The Spaces Between, and Tom and Jen aren’t exactly G, or even a PG rating!
They started playing the hipster song, not sure of its actual name, and the moment Tom said gender queer sure enough the arsehole teacher had the kids all get up, mid song, and leave. The kids wouldn’t have had a clue what was going on anyway so I just thought she was incredibly rude.
The Bleep Song was next up, that would have gone down even better with the teacher, and then unfortunately it was over. Alecia and I watched the next act, a comedian and then headed back to our hotel room to get ready for the night ahead. Well in actual fact we chilled and watched videos of Amanda Palmer at my house on her lap top.
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| Amanda Palmer performing in the Speigeltent |
Skip a couple of hours later and we were back in The Garden of Unearthly Delights having a look around as there were still a few hours until the gig. We ate fairy floss!!! The child inside me skipped! I almost accidently fairy-flossed Wil Anderson in the face when he walked past me on his way to his own show! We also looked around the market stalls and found a particularly creepy stall selling particularly creepy dolls, and then drank cocktails in a double decker bus.
About 2 hours before the gig was due to start we decided to line up. Unfortunately that night revealed to me once again that not all Amanda Palmer fans are as lovely as I had previously thought. For some strange reason the Adelaide Fringe people had us line up on the opposite side of the path from the venue. People were still able to go to the bar outside the venue though and stand around. So we watched people take one look at the line we’d be been standing in and decide they weren’t going to bother with that and stand at the bar instead. We even had one particularly bogan woman come up and ask to stand with us… It’s called line etiquette!!!
Anyway once the doors opened, all the people at the bar swarmed the doors before all of us who’d been lining up for hours had a chance to even get there. As a result, Alecia and I ended up quite a distance from the stage. Alecia managed to talk her way into getting two seats one row in front of us but it didn’t really make much difference. What confuses me more is the same line-up situation occurred the night before at Evelyn Evelyn & that problem didn’t happen but I heard it happened at Amanda’s solo show the previous night! |
| The Jane Austen Argument Tom Dickins & Jen Kingwell |
Despite that initial disappointment, the show was incredible. I can’t imagine a better show to have ended the “official” tour. Amanda treated the whole thing fairly relaxed taking requests from the audience and playing a few key tracks from her latest Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under album. I requested Truce but being that it’s 11 minutes long she was right to decline as it is was only a 60 minutes set. That 60 minutes flew by as well – you know the whole time flies when you’re having fun, well I was in nirvana!
After the gig Amanda signed and took photos with people but had organised with a local venue, Tuxedo Cat, to play a ninja gig. So Alecia and I skipped the signing again and headed straight to the venue to catch The Jane Austen Argument who were supporting! They played 2 songs before Amanda turned up, and those two songs were fabulous. If you’ve not heard them before you really must. http://thejaneaustenargument.net/
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| Amanda & Tom |
Amanda played a some of her own songs, a few covers and then along with The Jane Austen Argument played Bad Wine and Lemon cake and covered Regina Spektor’s The Flowers, which Amanda sung from on top of the bar. Props go to Jen for managing to play it on THAT keyboard.
Once the music was over Amanda came and sat down in front of Alecia and I. Before she was even able to open her mouth to say anything the people sitting next to us got up and pretty much stood in front of us to talk to her. I can’t handle those sorts of situations where crowds of people swarm around you, I had their arse’s in my face as Alecia and I were sitting on the floor! That is one thing I am incredibly mindful of when it comes to approaching Amanda, if she is with someone else leave them alone until they are finished!
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| Amanda performing The Flowers from on top of the bar |
Anyway Alecia and I got up to move because more and more people kept coming to talk to Amanda and they were pretty much standing on top of us but Amanda motioned for me to go to her and she told me she read the blog… and that she was proud of me!!! It was THE moment of my life! So I hugged and thanked her. I am going to go off on a tangent here so consider yourself warned…
I am so thankful to have discovered The Dresden Dolls, and therefore Amanda Fucking Palmer. I have never felt so ok, or like I belonged until I found that community. It doesn’t matter that I’m not perfect when I am listening to the music, or hanging out with other fans. I have started to feel proud to be who I am regardless of my faults and having Amanda say she was proud of me, hell having her even take the time to read that epically long blog, I can’t even begin to describe how that made me feel. My outlook on life has changed a great deal these last couple of months. I can’t say everything is "rainbows and unicorns" and my outlook is 100% positive because I’d be lying, but there are now moments and hours, even days in which I love life and feel hopeful about the future. I REALLY REALLY hope I am able to maintain that.
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| Amanda Palmer & The Jane Austen Argument |
I am still unsure as to whether I should have written THAT blog, and even more so whether I should have given it to Amanda, because I am an incredibly private person. I have considered deleting it because there are actually quite a few people, actually most people I know don’t know a lot of the things I wrote about in that blog, other than that disorder I wrote about that once severely affected me physically. The people I have met in the last few years wouldn’t even know about that, but like I said, being a part of the Dresden Dolls and Amanda Palmer community has made me realise that it’s ok to be a little fucked up. EVERYONE is. I should just embrace it and know that not everyone out there will judge me for it. They’ll stand by me as a comrade and say fuck you to those who do judge!
Ok enough about that, back to the tour. After thanking and hugging Amanda, Alecia and I went outside where we bumped into Eric and I introduced him to Candice who I noticed was sitting nearby. She lives at the house the Melbourne BBQ was going to be at so we chatted about it for a bit until about 3am when Alecia and I decided to leave as we had to be in a taxi at 5:15am to go back to the airport....
Part three will be up very soon!
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