Amanda Palmer @ The Zoo,Brisbane (10/03/2010)

Sun 28th Mar, 2010 in Gig Reviews

Amanda Palmer ’s long, narrative-heavy and downright hilarious songs are in abundance tonight. She calls herself a punk cabaret act, but musically talented comedian would suit better; if that were a genre. The similarly dark humoured Mikelangelo are in support tonight. Unfortunately their set is missed, but not entirely, with Mikelangelo making many a cameo in Amanda’s set.

He starts by holding Palmer’s ukulele for her in the second song of the night, as she seems to have “broken the stage”, her touch leaving it in a bedlam of broken equipment – including the mike stand and her seat. In a suggestive manner she says she can do a lot of things standing, but ukulele playing is not one of them. Thus the poor man strains to hold up the instrument for a very, very long song. Nevertheless, despite our sympathy for the guy, we all manage to forget about the technicalities and stuff-ups of the moment, and really listen to her beautiful, if sometimes confronting, lyrics.

She follows the ukulele quaintness with a cover of Jason Webley’s Icarus . The theatrics of her facial expressions are great. She really knows how to captivate a crowd with just a piano. Many artists would never be able to hush a bunch of drunken, hot, excited people by just sitting and singing, but Amanda has us enraptured like a prophet telling a parable under an old, ancient oak tree.

Mrs O shows Palmer can pack a punch in vocal, as well as expressive theatrics. She has complete control over her voice, and she knows the malleability of her face has a lot to do with mastery over the notes. This is particularly evident in the Dresden Dolls Coin-Operated Boy , where she staggers and skips the song on the lines ‘I want…/ A…/Coin-Operated Boy’- her face and voice as rigid as if she herself were a robot.

Tonight is a special night for us, as Amanda decides to record a song live to eventually put on an album dedicated to all things Australia. Apparently she “fucking loves this country” and this reviewer is fucking glad she does, or we’d not be listening to The Black Death right now. This is a song about a sticky, national icon getting in the way of love; yes, Vegemite is the third wheel in Amanda Palmer’s relationship with her partner. It’s her or the spread: “The choice is yours / My heart is in your hands / Just wash your hands.”

Tonight’s stand-outs are Australia ,a song about preferring to go to Australia than do the washing up, Mikelangelo’s twisted A Formidable Marinade with the lines ‘If sodomy is not just for animals / Human flesh is not just for cannibals’ summing up the nature of it quite well – and David Bowie’s Amsterdam. Oh, and a made-up on the spot song about Amanda driving from Byron Bay to Brisbane and finding a baby seal stranded on a farm, far from sea. Her wit is quick, and we are all in stitches.

The highlight of highlights is most certainly the classic Oasis – a seriously fucked up, very funny song – certainly a parody of the young girls out there who care more about celebrity gossip than their bodies being used by others.

Palmer takes a few minutes break from singing to read an excerpt from her photographic book Who Killed Amanda Palmer. The book describes different scenes of Palmer dead, and has pictorial “evidence” of each occurring. The excerpt she reads is by author Neil Gaiman, and the crowd shows no disrespect by hollering or even talking. Once again, we are at her attention- this time it is not her singing, or her words that are making us listen, it is purely her story-telling abilities.

Tonight’s performance shows why Palmer is so successful with just a piano. It is because, as an individual, she is interesting enough, expressive enough, and strange and oddly beautiful, that people are already drawn to her before she needs to prove her worth with a good voice, lyrics, or instrumental ability. This reviewer has never been so entertained by a singular person, just staring at them with no contribution on my part for two hours, in my life. Thank you Amanda Palmer, glad you’re alive still.