Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra - Wednesday 24th October 2012 - Manchester Cathedral
When I was eleven years old, I stumbled across the Dresden Dolls on the Internet. I was maybe too young at the time, but it did me no bad, and Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione's music opened my mind at a time it needed to be opened. A little later, I bought Amanda's solo album "Who Killed Amanda Palmer?", and this year her new release, "Theatre is Evil", with her new band the Grand Theft Orchestra. On Wednesday, I went to see her play at Manchester Cathedral for the very first time.
I arrived at the Cathedral that afternoon way too early, and walked around inside for a while to kill some time. When I got outside I knew I hadn't done something stupid by arriving at three o clock, because people were already there and they were unmistakeably Amanda Palmer fans. They were dressed up, in bright lipstick and dramatic eyeliner and a lot of black lace and tattoos, with more ukeleles than I think I've ever seen in one place.
I don't quite know how it happened but ten or twenty of us ended up assembled in the gardens outside the Urbis museum. People played ukeleles whilst everyone sang together, a girl dressed in steampunk attire recited poetry and every so often random passers-by would stop, kind of confused about whatever it was that went on.
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When doors opened at seven o clock, the crowd assembled around the small stage, in the centre of the crucifix that beautiful Manchester Cathedral is shaped as. And then, unexpectedly, a brass band started to play, and the whole audience swivelled to face the back of the building where they appeared from. They were the Horndog Brass Brand, from Edinburgh, and it was a such a perfect opening to the loud and theatrical nature of Amanda Palmer's show.
After the cathedral's reverend (!) came on to ask for donations and tell everyone to have a good time, Amanda introduced Jherek Bischoff, of the Grand Theft Orchestra, the second support act. Jherek was a bass player accompanied with strings, conducting them not with his hands but his entire body as he moved about the stage, lurching from side to side. He went from bass to ukelele, very song he played was radically different from the one before.
Amanda came on to introduce the next of her opening bands, and in attempt to "loosen up" the quiet and respectful audience, instructed everyone to close their eyes, turn their head towards the ceiling, throw their arms open and on 1, 2, 3, scream.
We all did. All at once. And being surrounded by chaos I think it was one of the most relaxing moments I've experienced.
The band she was introducing were The Simple Pleasure, an electro-punk band, their set made up of sparkly costumes and thrown around flamingo sculptures, a lot of dancing and audience interaction.
And then Amanda Fucking Palmer came on.
She appeared above the stage, singing down from a balcony, the whole place dark except for a spotlight on her. It was very Phantom of the Opera, as she sang completely acapella, surveying the cathedral, an old English folk song.
Amanda descended to the stage as "A Grand Theft Intermission" was played, big and striking and drastic, and she and her drummer threw out bunches of flowers to the audience. She made every song an anthem, the whole audience dancing and singing along with the words as if it were all that they believed, teenage kids and men, and women in lipstick and coloured wigs.
Her band, the Grand Theft Orchestra, were individually so talented and perfectly woven together as a whole, and you could just tell each of them shared everything about Amanda's ethos and attitude to music. Amanda herself was so passionate, slaying piano and at one point caressing the hair of the guy in front of me during "The Killing Type" when she stood up to sing, leaning right into the crowd and holding eye contact.
"Smile" was amazing, every member of the audience singing along, on the tips of their toes, and "The Bed Song" beautiful and heartbreaking, but the show was as playful as it was serious and intense. During "Missed Me", Amanda and her band would freeze like dolls, then spring to action and run across the stage to trade instruments between each verse, going from piano to bass to drums and back.
Amanda Palmer is one of the most hardworking and honest musicians I can think of, and as she went past the venue's curfew it wasn't possible for her to play an encore. She shrugged this off, of course, as no problem and told the crowd she would find somewhere "Probably legal" outdoors to finish the show. This ended up being the gatepost of the cathedral gardens, where most of the crowd gathered around outside to listen to her play "Oasis", an ironically cheerful song about abortion, "Creep", a cover of Radiohead's classic and "Ukelele Anthem" on her ukelele, singing along with every word.
"Stop pretending art is hard."
Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra are back in the UK in March next year, and touring the world between then and now. If you go to her website you can look at tour dates, or buy her new album, which is also avaliable for free download if you're broke.
And I can't really think of a better way to conclude this, than saying how I have never witnessed more of a sense of mutual love between absolute strangers, than over something such as an Amanda Palmer show. Because more than the perfection or the chaos, all that art boils down to is the ways that it brings people together.
