Amanda Fucking Palmer Goes Down Under - Part Three

Skip all the boring waiting at airports and all that jazz to Sunday 6^th March and the Melbourne BBQ in St Kilda. Ian arrived at my house at about 6:15am and on very little sleep once again we drove to the airport. Our flight wasn’t on the screen when we got there so I started panicking that it had been cancelled and we’d not been told, we were flying with Tiger so it wouldn't surprise me. Eventually it did come up on the screen and after a minor delay we were on our way.

We made good time and were in Melbourne by about 10:30am. We got into the city, ate sushi and then walked to the tram stop where we bumped into the one and only sparkle queen herself Kim Boekbinder! We hadn’t bought any alcohol yet so Ian and I quickly dashed off in search of a bottle shop. Much deliberating went down about what I should buy due to lack of money but expensive tastes but eventually I settled on Pear Cider. We thought by then Kim would have been on her way to the BBQ but to our pleasant surprise when we got back to the tram stop she was only just getting on and she had the delightful Saint Clare with her.

William Cooper

We didn’t sit with Kim and Clare on the tram but once we got off to walk to the house we chatted about gigs, Mikelangelo, Saint Clare and the Tin Star are going to be in Sydney end of March beginning of April so everyone should come. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=172122492835930 And Kim is also hoping to come to Sydney at the end of April so fingers crossed for that!!!

Kim Boekbinder

When we arrived a lot of people were already there. Guy gave us the shirts we got as part of the fee we paid to go. The shirt is awesome and was designed by Marianne. Unfortunately mine is incredibly short so I doubt it'll be worn.

We met up with Alecia and Phil and I got tackled with hugs by Marianne. I talked to Lisa, who I met for the first time with Guy, Marianne, Candice and Crystal in Hobart at the Brisbane Hotel AFP gig in 2009. If only Bec and Crystal were there it would have been a reunion!

It was quite a hot day which I was loving! No one else seemed to be though. Alecia went and got a big picnic blanket out of her car and we found a spot on the grass in front of the make-shift stage where we continued to catch up.

I said hello to William Cooper who I met on twitter and then in person for the first time briefly in Brisbane after AFP's gig, as well as little Lisa who up until that point I’d only spoken to via twitter. See what I mean about community!!!

The Jane Austen Argument
with William Cooper

Before long the music kicked off and first up was Daniel Reeves. I missed some of his set as I was inside but what I saw he was pretty good.

Next up The Impossible Girl - Kim Boekbinder! She played “The Organ Donor’s March” which I did the inner happy dance to upon hearing; as well as my other favourite “Sex, Drugs and Nuclear Physics”, “Love is an Organ Grinder’s Monkey” and Ian’s daughter’s favourite “Gypsy”. It was a short but very enjoyable set.

The Jane Austen Argument
with Amanda Palmer
& William Cooper

I think Amanda may have arrived somewhere during Kim’s set but next up was The Jane Austen Argument. During their set Jen played the first ever happy song she has ever written and it was beautiful. It made me smile on the inside and out! The rest of the songs were also amazing as always. Amanda got up and played with them during Bad Wine and Lemon Cake as well as William Cooper who plays accordion. He is very talented and has just moved to Melbourne, I hope he gets to play with them more often, or finds another band that he’ll get to perform and even write with.

Tom and Jen then debuted a song they wrote with Neil Gaiman for Amanda. It was incredibly sweet and once they’ve practiced it and played it live a few times I think it’s going to be a crowd favourite!

General Assembly

After The Jane Austen Argument people just hung out for a bit. Amanda made her way around the different groups of people, and then ice-cream and sorbet was handed out to everyone. Amanda came and sat down on our blanket to eat hers… She opted to take the hard way as she seems to do with many things in her life, and ate it without a spoon… I'll let you create your own visuals for that.

The sorbet was delicious. I was not able to determine if it was vegan or not, sorbet generally is, but some people put egg in it so I am hoping it was vegan. I figure what I don’t know can’t hurt me though!

Saint Clare & Mikelangelo

Tom and Jen had to leave not long after as they needed to get a flight back to Adelaide for their Fringe show that night. That’s dedication, flying in for a gig and out again within a matter of hours for another!

Another band, The General Assembly played. They were pretty good. A bit Boy and Bearish.

Adelaide boys singing
Madonna

Mikelangelo and Saint Clare then took to the stage. I won’t go on about it because I’ve already written about them multiple times in this epic 3 part blog, but they are incredible performers and I can’t wait to see them again here in Sydney in April.

There was then another bit of a break where people just mingled. After a while two of the Candice’s friends from Adelaide got up to play her and her housemates a song on Uke. A sort of farewell as one of them is moving to London soon. It was quite hilarious. They sung Madonna. Mikelangelo joined in as well on accordion!

Mikelangelo + Adelaide dude

Then Eric played a song on Uke! I can’t remember who it was by but he did a great job considering he is not a musician and only started playing very recently.

Once he finished Amanda started to perform. She played Uke first from the couch as the keyboard/PA wasn’t working. She did a couple of covers, and I think she may have played a couple of her own songs but everything is starting to blur now. Mikelangelo then accompanied her on guitar as she sung The Ship Song. It was amazing. Spine tingling; goosebump causing amazing. My brain has exploded so many times with amazement over the last couple of months. I am surprised I am still able to string a sentence together!

Eric Uke-ing out

Amanda then read to us from Paul Kelly’s book “How To Make Gravy”. She read a story he wrote referencing the Speigeltent Amanda had just performed in herself at the Adelaide Fringe. He’d written about his worst and best gigs and it was great to see Amanda read it and completely relate to it herself. She then told us a story about what she considered to be the worst gig she ever played as part of the Dresden Dolls.

The Ship Song

She read another story that required a Scottish accent, and she did it perfectly! It felt like I was back in Scotland talking to my Scottish family, although it was much warmer than the last time I was there!

Then we ate. I ate the vegan curry. It was really tasty! I was a bit sunburnt by that stage despite applying sunscreen! Thankfully the sun had begun to go down. Amanda came and sat with us for a bit and told us about the two talks she was going to be doing at the high school and University over the next couple of days. Then there was a brief conversation on high school uniforms and how strict some schools are. From that conversation I got the impression that a lot of schools in Melbourne don’t have uniforms!!! I was not aware of this. Amanda also told us that before school started back after the holidays, she’d sometimes plan her outfit for weeks! I am glad we had uniforms. They were ugly as fuck, I had to wear a pale pink shirt until I was in year 10 and in year 11 and 12 it wasn’t much better being a pale blue shirt, but it meant not having to give it a second thought when I got up in the morning!

Amanda serenading Saint Clare
and Mikelangelo

Anyway… once everyone seemed to have finished eating Amanda got up to play some more songs, this time on Keyboard which was now working again. Amanda and Eric played a song for Marianne. Eric changed the words to Boston to be about taking photos! It was hilarious and incredibly sweet of them. She then asked for requests and there were a lot of songs requested that I was really looking forward to hearing! Unfortunately there are not enough hours in the day, or night.

Reading from Paul Kelly's
book "How To Make Gravy"

Amanda started to play Ampersand, but the keyboard cut out again so William got up and played accordion and Amanda played uke. Accordion is a great addition to the song!

The rest of the night was pretty much Amanda attempting to play a song and then the same drunk guy (one of those who got up earlier to play a song on uke) would start talking to her, trying to get her to do another cover. That got very old very fast considering we were all there to see Amanda play Amanda, or Dresden Dolls songs! She did manage to get a few more in though which was great including Such Great Heights with Kim!

 It had gotten dark by this stage so Amanda suggested we take it inside. Alas! She had not performed “Missed Me” yet so I made sure to yell that out and she did and wow! Thank baby heyzuz I am a persistent fucker. It was unreal!

Mikelangelo and William played accordion as Amanda walked around the backyard “getting intimate” with all the guests… A furry hat was thrown across the backyard. Amanda balanced on the backrest of a couch, she got all hands-ey with Saint Clare and Eric got all hands-ey with Amanda, in that moment I also doubted that he was gay. The song ended with a pash for one lucky guest.

Amanda Fucking Palmer

After that everyone headed inside to buy merch, get stuff signed and take photos. I spoke to Saint Clare and Kim again briefly and got photos with them Mikelangelo and Eric, and then whoever was still there all had group shots. Amanda, Eric, Kim and Saint Clare also took photos on the couch with all the housemates and their friends. Apparently there was a penis in one that Amanda accidently tweeted after it was all over!

Following that photo session we all went out the front where more photos were taken. This time nakedness was a definite theme. 2 buys got their junk out, and well, Amanda got her tits out, but who hasn’t seen Amanda’s tits! I found out later that one of the penis's were actually freshly circumcised!!!

At about 9pm sadly it was then time for Amanda to leave. Eric and Amanda had been at Mardi Gras the previous night so they'd barely slept, actually I don't think Eric had slept at all! I said goodbye to, thanked and hugged Eric who went back inside for a massage, and then did the same with Amanda who got into a taxi and off she went.

I totally forgot to even get a photo with her! Oh well, I have a few from previous years I just didn’t really get any with her this tour other than at my house and one at Byron, which I don’t even have as someone else took it with their camera.

We said our goodbyes to everyone else and then Alecia and Phil generously drove Ian and I back to our hotel. Thanks again guys!!!

Ian and I chatted and got up to date on twitter until Guy came back to the hotel and we talked about the day. Then we all went to bed. I didn’t really sleep and had to be up at about 5-5:30am but it was worth it.

We were back in Sydney by 10:30am the next day, and my Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under Tour was over.

---------------------

Some thank you’s now…

Thank you to my family for being very generous and helping me pay for a lot of it. It’s so lucky that Christmas was just before Amanda came to Australia because I asked for money to put towards it all. Thank you also for driving me to and picking me up from airports and helping out with the BBQ - and for putting up with me whenever I talked about it all!

Thank you to Crystal for being a part of most of it. I missed you incredibly at the times you weren’t there because you are my AFP ally and my best friend but I am really glad you were with me at the times you were.

Amanda getting handsey
 with Saint Clare

Thank you to Alecia for coming to Adelaide Fringe with me! You made it extra fun!

Thank you to Mel and all the other people I met on this tour, or previous tours, for hanging out with me as well. You’re all wonderful! And to Ian for driving me back from Pretty Peepers!

Thank you to Marianne for being amazing and lovely and taking beautiful photos that will keep these memories alive for years to come.

Missed Me

Thank you to Guy and Candice and all who were involved in the organising the Who St Kilda BBQ!

Thank you to Neil Gaiman for your beautiful words… Your stories kept me going as I travelled up and down the east coast of Australia.

Thank you to Tom Dickins and Jen Kingwell, Kim Boekbinder, Jason Webley, Mikelangelo and Saint Clare for not only making beautiful music that touches me and makes me smile, and laugh and feel, that breaks and mends my heart, that annihilates my brain; but for being so human when off stage. For talking to your fans and being so unpretentious, and giving people like Marianne the chance to take your photo, and Crystal the chance to do your make-up! Kim - an extra thank you for coming to my BBQ and for being so lovely and kind!!!

Amanda, Eric, Kim + Clare
with the housemates + friends
of the hosts

Thank you to Eric for helping make the BBQ happen in such a short amount of time and for always having a smile on his face and the willingness to have a chat. For someone who has an incredibly stressful job he manages to treat people with respect and always gives people his time. Thank you also for giving me many setlists and Evelyn & Evelyn’s scarf. I really needed it that night, it was FFREEEZZINNNG!

Finally thank you Amanda Fucking Palmer from the very bottom of my heart, fuck it, thank you from every part of my being. She is an incredible person who does incredible things. Her existence has helped so many people including myself, in many different ways. I wish there were more people on the planet as creative and full of love, tolerance and beauty as she is. She has given me confidence I never had, and helped me accept and feel proud of myself and for that I’ll be forever grateful. Not only that, but I had such a great time travelling around going to those gigs and meeting such amazing people along the way, I truly had the greatest time in my life. 2011 has kicked off to a brilliant start. I probably won’t be able to afford to do anything for the rest of the year and I will probably still be catching up on sleep for the next few weeks but it was all more than worth it!!!!

Oh and thank you to you if you actually read this far!


For all of the photos I've posted in these blogs (other than the two that are Marianne's) go to my Flickr Page where you'll find hundreds more. Eventually I'll upload all the photos I've taken at various gigs over the last few years so if you are a Flickr member add me!

Amanda Fucking Palmer Goes Down Under - Part One

Those that know me well know that the first few months of each year is an exciting time for me. Why? No, not just because I HATE the cold and those beginning months of the year are the warmest, but because Amanda Fucking Palmer graces our land down under. (Hmmm that didn't sound dirty when I first wrote it...)

This year however I have experienced a ridiculous amount of awesome. I went to 5 official Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under shows, 1 official Evelyn Evelyn show for the Adelaide Fringe, 3 Ninja Gigs and 2 BBQs, one being at my house that I posted my previous 2 blogs about. I probably would have gone to more had my Aunt not decided to finally get hitched to her now husband after being together for 18 years.

I have travelled close to 7500kms since the 26th of January; by car, by plane, by train, by tram, and by foot. 

It was by far the greatest experience of my life. Not just because of Amanda Palmer but because of the absolutely amazing people I have met along the way and have forged friendships with, or strengthened already existing friendships I had with those I have met on previous AFP adventures. I feel like I actually belong when I am with them. They don't roll their eyes when I start talking about music, and let’s face it, that's pretty much ALL I talk about, instead they join in!

Amanda Palmer

I'll start with where it all began. The Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under Australia Day Spectacular, January 26^th. 


The show featured The Jane Austen Argument, Mikelangelo and The Black Sea Gentlemen, Neil Gaiman, a very brief video appearance by Meow Meow and Amanda Fucking Palmer herself.

Neil Gaiman

The show was a beautiful mess. Yes shit went wrong, some songs were unfortunately missed but fuck it was an amazing show. My abdominal muscles got a great work out from laughter. My heart was broken and stitched back together again by the beautiful music, and words, we were blessed with hearing that evening.

Highlights from the night include Map Of Tasmania - it was full on sparkle fest, Holly Austin beatboxing and my first glimpse of Kim Boekbinder in the flesh! Dr Oz, In My Mind, Missed Me which involved an extremely intimate level of audience participation, Bad Wine and Lemon Cake - It was so amazing to see Tom and Jen ON STAGE AT THE OPERA HOUSE!!! and The Drover's Boy not to mention Neil fucking Gaiman reading from the Who Killed Amanda Palmer book, his poem about AFP, and the story about Mega fauna. 

BBQ Group Shot

Following the Opera House was the BBQ at my place on 28^th January. I won't go into much detail with it now as I have already written two blogs focused on it, but it was amazing enough to warrant two blogs! The night was basically a bunch of strangers becoming friends. We ate and drank and chatted. Amanda and Kim both played beautiful music, we hugged and smiled and revealed our deepest fears. I think I made some friends that night that I'll know for the rest of my time on this planet. 

Saint Clare

Sunday the 30^th January, Crystal and I drove to Newcastle for Amanda Palmer Goes Down on The Great Northern Hotel. The night began with a real treat. Kim Boekbinder opened and this was my first experience of seeing her perform an actual plugged in set live. She was amazeballs. The sound she is able to create with such minimal instrumentation... WOW!

Amanda Palmer & Kim Boekbinder 

Then The Jane Austen Argument played. They never fail to make my heart sing.

Next up Mikelango, one Black Sea Gentleman and the super sexy St Clare. Mikelangelo is probably the most charismatic performer I've ever seen. He has such a command of the stage. St Clare has an amazing sultry voice and the moves to go along with it. Despite the sound guy either being drunk or deaf and the sound therefore not being at its best, their performance more than made up for it.

Then Amanda Palmer took to the stage... Well she made her way through the crowd to the stage.

Sparkle fest during Map Of Tasmania

I can't really choose a highlight of the night for best song(s) because they were all amazing, but In My Mind always clutches at my heart strings.

At the end of the show, Tom Dickins pulled me aside and played Green Wings for me on his Ukulele. I am always requesting that he play it, even though he had gotten sick of it. Amazing! I fucking LOVE that song & I felt so special that he took the time to do that for me.

After Newcastle my life resumed as normal for just over a week until Crystal and I fired up the Prius and made the 12 hour drive to Byron Bay on the 9^th February. We arrived at about 6pm and checked into our motel, ate and then with grapes in hand headed to a Ninja gig on the beach with Amanda and Eric. Crystal and I were the first to successfully locate Amanda and Eric. By this stage it was almost completely pitch black and Amanda had twittered very nonspecific location tweets so they really could have been anywhere within a 2 km radius, the only way we were able to find them in the end was by following the sound of Amanda’s trusty Ukulele.

Amanda made a heart on the beach 

At first it appeared as though it was just going to be the four of us, so Amanda said we’d just go naked night swimming - thankfully (I know some people would not think thankfully but I did!) people found us and the ninja gigging began. Amanda played a few songs on uke, tim tams and grapes were passed around the group and we took some group shots and then headed back up to the town for gelato where Amanda proceeded to busk (Creep) in order to buy the kids who had come to the ninja gig some gelato. Unfortunately by the time she finished playing the song the gelato shop had closed! Amanda then started signing and taking photos with people so Crystal and I left to enjoy Byron by night.

Amanda Busking

The following day we just chilled, Crystal taste tested the local beer, which I am of the opinion all tasted like arse, but she seemed to enjoy it. Then we met up with photographer Extraordinaire Marianne. Find all her amazing work at http://www.mankissingbird.com. I've known Marianne since the beginning of 2009 when we met at an Amanda Palmer gig in Hobart but I hadn't seen her since then, until she came to my AFPINTHEBURBS BBQ. She is such a lovely person and I am so glad I reconnected with her.

Marianne, photo by Marianne
Make up by Crystal

Crystal worked her make-upey magic on her - Marianne can frequently be spotted wearing a moustache but Crystal's work was extra special for the Byron gig that night. 

Then it was gig time so we headed off the The Great Northern (yes she played in two venues called The Great Northern while in Australia and yes I know the twin peaks reference)! Once again we were treated with the amazing Kim Boekbinder opening the show. I can't get enough of the lady's music! Crystal, Marianne, and I danced along up the front... well Marianne danced when she wasn't taking photos. Sex, Drugs and Nuclear Physic's was my favourite track of hers that night.

The Impossible Girl
Kim Boekbinder

Next up was Mikelangelo, St Clare and The Tin Star. This was my first Tin Star experience and they were fantastic. Surf Western Balkan Guitar Rock goodness... and St Clare Go Go dancing = WHOA!

Then Amanda hit the stage... well once again made her way through the audience to the stage... This was the first gig I ever heard Astronaut live WITH drums. AURAL BRAIN EXPLOSION! The addition of drums to a few of the songs pretty much made my brain explode constantly throughout the night but I can’t even put into words what experiencing Astronaut with drums for the first time was like. I think it is my favourite song of all time. When Amanda first released the WKAP version before the rest of the album came out, I’d listen to it on repeat every day and I still can’t function if the song is playing... don’t even bother trying to have a conversation with me if it’s on!

The Drover's Boy

I loved the Bangalow gig last year because it was so different to the other gigs I went to. It was so laid back. This one was different again.... It was laid back in that there wasn't a massive crowd so Amanda + co just seemed to go with the flow in a way, but that’s not what made this gig so amazing and I can’t really put my finger on the reason it was. It could have just been the addition of the drums, but Mikelangelo played drums at the Opera House a bit as well. Maybe the fact I was with a number of friends who love the music & we enjoyed it together rather than Crystal and I being surrounded by a room of strangers had something to do with it. I felt like I was with comrades and that's what I love most about the Amanda Palmer + Dresden Dolls community.

I think seeing Amanda Palmer in Byron bay has become my most favourite thing to do now!

revealing THE famous
underwear!

Crystal and I stuck around in Byron the next day as well, and then drove Marianne back to Brisbane on the 12^th. That was another brilliant day. Marianne had set up a photo shoot at the Old Museum with Mikelangelo and Saint Clare and I set one up for her with Tom Dickins and Crystal did make-up for both.

Tom and Ange photo shoot
photo by Marianne

Marianne took some absolutely beautiful photos of Tom and Ange, his girlfriend, for her birthday, as well as some other “artier” photos of just Tom. The venue was perfect for photo shoots. 


She then shot Saint Clare and Mikelangelo. All of the photos can be found at the address I mentioned previously but I've added one here as well.

Tom, Mikelangelo and Saint Clare are such beautiful people, inside and out. They all made us feel welcome despite the fact we were in their space and taking up the short time they had to relax before the show. They’re so down to earth and human. I’ve been around many arrogant and pretentious artists in my life; you’d not find any of that with them. We just chatted about music and love, it was a wonderful afternoon!

Once the photo shoots were wrapped up and the artists went off to rehearse and sound check, Marianne, Crystal and I went to line up for the gig.

Tom Dickins

I don’t really know what to write about the Brisbane gig. All of the artists put their all in. Tom was amazing despite being solo for the night, Mikelangelo, Saint Clare and the Tin Star owned the stage, and Amanda, well what can I say, she is a trooper - there were many technical difficulties which were distracting and even that wasn’t a problem. It was the audience.

The reason I held that BBQ and invited a bunch of strangers into my house is because I’ve only ever had the most wonderful experiences with Amanda Palmer fans. I’ve made many friends all around Australia and even the world and they are so lovely but the crowd at that Brisbane show, they just seemed feral. From talking and making noise through The Drover’s Boy, which is a song that demands respect, to the psycho fan just not shutting up and threatening to really ruin the show.

I know many artists who wouldn’t have been able to recover from the distraction of technical difficulties, especially seeing as though Amanda was having the show filmed, and even more so I know many artists who would leave the stage and not return if they were being hassled, as Amanda was, by the psycho fan girl, but Amanda took it in her stride and recovered, and the quality of the artist’s performances was never affected. That is why following them around the country is an easy decision to make.


I have a very difficult time being around people who don’t seem to respect one another, especially when it is the audience appearing not to respect the performers. I just can’t understand why people pay money just to get drunk and risk not even remembering a show afterwards, and then in turn negatively impacting upon others people’s experience. Anyway there is no reason to dwell because musically and performance wise the show was killer, but Brisbane audience get it together!


As I said Amanda Palmer is a trooper and the show must go on and it did and it was incredible. Mikelangelo even came down off stage and stood with Marianne, Crystal and I until he had to go take care of the psycho fan girl problem. Also at the end of the night he got me up on stage to dance to Leeds United!!! At first I was too chicken but then I thought fuck it and got up there and did quite the happy dance! It was exhilarating! A few people jumped up including Crystal but unfortunately about ¾ of the way through the show Marianne had started feeling sick and had to leave early which was really sad because it would have been brilliant to have her up there with us dancing and taking photos. I've yet to see any photos of Leeds United actually. 

 Formidable Marinade

As soon as the show finished Crystal and I once again fired up the Prius and drove through the night to get back to Sydney by the following afternoon as Crystal had tickets to a show. I don’t think I’ll do that again unless I’ve had sufficient sleep. I kept myself awake by blasting Mikelangelo + The Black Sea Gentlemen, Mikelangelo + The Tin Star, Kim Boekbinder, Vermillion Lies, The Jezabels, The Jane Austen Argument as well as Tom’s older solo stuff, and of course Amanda Palmer and The Dresden Dolls but by the end of the drive it was almost painful to still be awake and concentrate.


I got home at 1:15pm. We left Brisbane at about 12:15am (Brisbane time)…. It took a couple of days to really recover from that drive but it was definitely worth it.

.... I'll post part two tomorrow!