Amanda Palmer @ Fly By Night,Fremantle (04/02/11)

Sun 6th Feb, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Amanda Palmer brought her travelling circus to Perth as she continued her love affair with the nation by dedicating an entire album to us. This time she had Mikelangelo and the Tin Star, Saint Claire and Kim Boekbinder (a.k.a The Impossible Girl) in her entourage and co-opted local trio Minute 36 as her first support act. The line at the Fly By Night snaked back down the street all the way to the Fremantle Markets and was filled with costumed fans waiting to pay joyous homage to the goddess of Carnivale. The busker out the front had people wiggling their hips early as he alternated between djembe and didge, joined for a while by a couple of lads in the queue.

Minute 36 played their usual heart tearing set full of angry sadness, but it was difficult to empathise with them because the room was buzzing with exuberant anticipation that not even Kris Nelson’s broken-glass vocals could pierce. The audience seemed to enjoy the set, applauding in the right places and laughing at the stage banter as they jostled for a position close to the stage.

Out wandered a man in a red ruffled shirt, sporting cuff links, pompadour and sideburns he looked like a 50s wedding singer. The bemused audience looked on as he prepared the stage and whooped as he checked his hair in a small mirror. Mikelangelo paused to cheekily ask the venue to please turn the heat up a bit more before his band arrived and unleashed a wave of surf rock that had the sweltering crowd wishing they actually were standing in the surf. In a voice as deep as Leonard Cohen’s, he gyrated and posed as he sang “Action is my middle name.” No Sign of a Pipeline was purely instrumental with Saint Claire doing interpretive dance to tell the story. Picking up a piano accordion Mikelangelo began to play the melody to Missed Me and just as the audience had decided to sing the lyrics themselves, Amanda fucking Palmer appeared above the crowd like a smiting angel in fishnets and tulle with a union jack corset and knee length boots. And the crowd went wild, and at least one girl swooned – yes, swooned at the sight of her heroine. Nice.

Amanda Palmer is the poster-girl for modern feminism. Not the man-hating masculinised feminism of the past, but the kind of feminism that says I am woman, and I am not apologising for my sex. She embraces everything good, and by publicly sharing her self-reflexive crusade, she takes others on the journey. After playing the sexy, bluesy Dr Oz she remembered she actually needed a doctor, and asked if there was a doctor in the house – Then she showed us her spider bite. She told us In My Mind was a song she was embarrassed about writing and never thought she’d play live… “but then I thought, fuck it, I’ll grow” The audience stood quietly rapt, taking in every word, and with it inspiration, consolation and new resolve for themselves. Meanwhile, the swooning girl hyperventilated quietly.

Kim Boekbinder joined her on stage and together they concocted a plan for their next stage show involving the cast of Twin Peaks and Amish midgets under eight that had the audience giggling harder the wilder the plan got. When she asked if we’d come, everyone roared “Yeah!” Then they gave us an evocative cover of the Postal Service’s Such Great Heights followed shortly afterwards by a hilarious song about how much she hates Vegemite. It turns out that her irrational fear is based on a completely different yeast-based spread (Marmite) that she was tricked into consuming in a far greater quantity than any sane person would.

With Mikelangelo she played a cheeky duet of Formidable Marinade “…sodomy is not just for animals. Human flesh is not just for cannibals…” One of his songs that likely won’t get played on the radio (except for RTR of course). Gaga Palmer Madonna is about famous musical women who like to be naked that asks; why should we care if talented people want to make pop music when there’s so much other shit wrong. She revisited the Dresden Dolls with Girl Anachronism and Coin Operated Boy and the audience all shouted along joyously. In a bizarre moment in gig history, someone requested she play the national anthem, and when she said she didn’t know it, the crowd actually sang it to her. It is probably the first time Amanda Palmer has been rendered speechless.

In between, she chatted and laughed easily with the adoring crowd, gushing about awesome things that had happened to her in Australia, like playing at the Carillon in Canberra and singing The Drovers Boy at the Opera House on Australia Day. Introducing the song, she explained its origins and then held the audience in perfect stillness as she wove a spell with her voice. It almost didn’t matter what songs she played, it was like hearing each song for the first time, and it seemed like she was playing in a lounge room for some close friends.

She passed around a hat for the support act and plugged ex-tour mate and friend Jason Webley’s gig at the Bird next week exhorting everyone to go along. (Unfortunately the Bird is tiny, and if even ten percent of the crowd go, they won’t fit in.) She covered his song Icarus so well it was as if Webley was in the room with her.

Saint Claire returned during Oasis for some more interpretive dance, and Boekbinder during the encore, to add a rap to Map of Tasmania speaking up for girls who like their pubic region smooth. The crowd danced even though there was little air left in the room, eyes never leaving the action on stage until the very last minute and then the sadness that it was over was tempered by the idea of the fresh, cool air outside into which they rushed.

Amanda Palmer at Fly By Night setlist

Missed Me*
Astronaut*
Dr. Oz*
In My Mind
Icarus (Jason Webley)
Such Great Heights (w/ Kim Boekbinder)
Vegemite
Gaga Palmer Madonna
Girl Anachronism
Australia
Drover’s Boy*
Coin-Operated Boy*
Formidable Marinade*
Runs In The Family
Oasis*
E: Map Of Tasmania*
Leeds United*

• with Mikelangelo and the Tin Star and Saint Clare