IT IS THREE and a half weeks since I saw and, more importantly, heard singer, songwriter, musician, author and performance artist Amanda Palmer in the slightly unlikely setting of Bexhill on Sea.
Since then, I have listened to her music often, working my way through her back catalogue, I have watched her TED talk The Art of Asking more than once, I have followed her on Instagram, I have signed up for her newsletter, and I totally devoured her book (also called The Art of Asking) in a little under two days. I think I’m just about to become a ‘patron’.
To be honest, the concert - at the De La Warr Pavilion - left me faintly exhausted. Musically, it was amazing - the staccato piano riff on Drowning in the Sound has stayed with me ever since - and Amanda* has a really powerful, expressive and often quite beautiful voice. She is also a great actor. There was much to make the audience laugh out loud in her one-woman show - she could easily have been a stand-up comic. And there was a great deal to bring tears to their eyes. Amanda calls the tearful parts of the gig, ‘stand-up tragedy’.
Before this concert, I knew these things about her: I knew that she was once in a band called the Dresden Dolls, which is still favoured by two of my female friends (coincidentally, both Polish); I’d heard her music described as ‘post punk cabaret’; and I knew she was married to one of my favourite authors, Neil Gaiman.
After the concert, I wondered if there was anything I didn’t know about her. In a raw three hours and a bit, she talked about her men, her abortions and her miscarriage; she talked about her art; she talked about being trolled; about the death of her closest friend; about her infatuation as a 14-year old Goth with a man she called The Corrupter; and she talked about how she broke the music industry’s model by asking her fans to help out. It was, at times, unrelenting (even she cried) - and it was always inspiring.
The concert opened with a few ukulele chords springing up from the middle of the audience, and a sort-of-smiley song called In My Mind.
“In a future five years from now
I’m one hundred and twenty pounds
and I never get hungover
Because I will be the picture of discipline
never minding what state I’m in
and I will be someone I admire.
And it’s funny how I imagined
that I would be that person now
but it does not seem to have happened …”
As she sang, she paused to ask people what Bexhill was like, or to point out that De La Warr is a little like Delaware, the small American state where ‘nobody knows what happens’. And as she stopped by people’s seats, she made eye contact, a skill perfected in her early years as a living statue called the eight foot bride.
When she stood behind me in the stalls, I turned and briefly caught her gaze. It was direct, powerful and amazingly warm. I think she probably had us all eating out of her hand before she even made it to the stage.
What happened when she did make it to the stage was even more startling. Amanda Palmer is an artist in the way that Tracey Emin is an artist - she’s out there, poking, prodding, challenging. Art is not meant to be ‘safe’ or ‘nice’ or ‘pretty’; it is meant to be provocative, it is meant to make you think.
And so Drowning in the Sound was written around the time of Hurricane Harvey, which displaced 30,000 people and killed 70 in Texas and Louisiana. But uniquely it was written using ‘input/inspiration/comments’ from more than 600 of her fan-patrons and ‘it wound up being a response to the insanity of internet politics melded with the recent total eclipse and the devastation of Hurricane Harvey ‘and … y’know … other stuff’. Here’s an excerpt:
“… they’re blaring out a warning
that our natural state is drowning
that our natural state is burning.
And you’re trying to help
and you’re clicking for change
and you’re calling it out
and you’re adding your name
and you’re marching for peace
but you’re lynching the bitch
that got up in your face.
How else they gonna take it seriously?”
The lyrics remind me of Dylan in his Masters of War days - it’s a song to be spat out. That line ‘You’re clicking for change …’ captures so well the hope and the futility of internet petitioning.. And then - from the same album - There Will Be No Intermission - Voicemail for Jill is a poignant and quite lovely song about - abortion. It is very common. Nobody talks about it. Except Amanda Palmer.
The Ride, on the other hand, is a simple metaphor - life is a rollercoaster ride, you can get off whenever you want but it’s best to see how long you can last and if you can make it worth it. I really like the first stanza, Amanda is a talented lyricist:
“Everyone’s too scared to open their eyes up
But everyone’s too scared to close them
Everyone’s frightened they don’t know what’s coming
But everyone’s frightened of knowing.
Everyone’s reading the rules of engagement
And everyone’s starting to doubt them
Everyone’s reaching to put on a seatbelt
But this kind of ride comes without them.”
Before the concert had really started, Amanda Palmer asked how many people in the audience knew her work. Around half of us put up our hands - and I wasn’t the only silver-haired member of the audience (it was Bexhill, after all). The fact that, so far as I can tell, everybody remained in their seats, listened intently for an exhausting three hours plus, laughed a lot, sometimes cried a little and then gave a standing ovation, says a lot about Amanda Palmer’s skills as an actor, songwriter and musician. It was, simply, one of the most remarkable concerts I’ve ever been to - an absolute gift. Thanks Amanda.
* I had to call her by her first name. The concert was so intimate, so confessional, that afterwards I felt I’d made a new friend.
The tale of how Amanda Palmer broke the music industry model and is now crowdfunded by her fans is best told by her, in her TED talk here.
And here’s a link to her website.