I walked in blind, not knowing, not
expecting anything. My partner and I had spent an hour wandering
through the garden, admiring the sweet festival atmosphere and
sipping espresso cocktails, relaxing for a rare evening without our
children. Walking to the venue, I mis-read the banner outside the
uni as Miskatonic University,
and we chuckle at the thought of tentacles and cosmic horror at an
Amanda Palmer show. It's often said that fans tend to look like the
artist they admire, in a fashion sense, so in observing the variety
in styles, ages and genders, it feels easy to say that Amanda Palmer
is not an easy musician to define.
I could say
cabaret, but that term feels so vague as to be meaningless.
I
could say feminist piano punk, and...maybe that's saying something
about her.
But that's just her
music, and that is only a part of the story, for the performance is
itself a story. So perhaps I should start at the beginning...
*
We like to dress
up, my partner and I,
like birds, we
preen,
she wears
feathers in her hair
I wear one in
my cap,
to walk
and wander, wondering
at the
sunset chimes of a festival
upon the
streets.
The venue is an
upturned boat, an arc, a magnificent wooden cave, an edifice of stone
and timber that is place of worship, it is a lecture hall, a concert
hall, a religious experience just to be inside; this is a church
whose sanctity seems preserved in the magnitude of it's own beauty.
It has a beauty that does not brag, yet is proud, is grand yet
somehow homely. The crowd feel at home here on these wooden fold out
chairs, staring up at the mist curling from the stage, the purple and
blue mist curling as if directed by fate over the grand piano.
I sit very still
and quiet amidst the noise and bustle.
Striding
up the centre aisle from behind us, she strums her beloved ukulele
and beams at all of us. It is easy to feel loved at a Palmer show,
she exudes the philosophy of her life, which she will speak on at
length and with great eloquence and passion. That philosophy
includes Radical Compassion.
I walked in only
half blind; I knew this was going to be a four hour show, and that it
would be a mixture of talking and music. I did not expect her to
tell a story, and I did not know what it would be about. I saw the
information stall outside the venue, but I did not guess its
importance.
Amanda came to tell
us a story that she did not want to tell. It was the story of
abortion. Her own experiences, and those of others. She talked
about the value of telling the story, of opening herself up to people
throughout the experience, and how every time she worried that
speaking the truth might burden those she told, she found only the
lifting of burdens, the lightening of hearts and the further opening,
opening, opening of life around her. Open to the experience of
everything and powerfully aware of her own powers and weaknesses.
When she sits and
sings and plays the piano, Oh! I love the way she punches for
effect, a sort of right cross into the lower octaves. I love her
rhythms which build up from their catchy roots and come rushing into
the the room as the story of each song survives the storms of its
telling. I love her melodies, where a kind of bent classical waltz
will reanimate itself into a playful nursery rhyme, or a tumbling
wild animal stampede will find sudden yet graceful stillness in a
heartbreaking cry from her heart filled voice.
Oh I love her
voice. A voice that knows itself so well, inside the body of a woman
who knows herself, who challenges herself, who shares herself, who
travels back and forth from Hades to Heaven and sings a rhyming
poetry, a skipping and lifting verse that makes a long story all the
better for being long. She is so clever with language, with turns of
phrase and the subtle ways that meaning continues to change in our
common tongue. This command of language is an expression of both her
wisdom and her wit, she is a storyteller of no small skill, parallel
tales just falling out her her in a very smooth, totally comfortable
manner. She talks to us like we are sitting together in a lounge
room, and we, her very happy guests, sit happy in our silence, or
happy to call out or laugh.
Her story is a hard
one, and many times I wipe tears from my eyes. The two large bearded
men in the row ahead of me also wipe their tears. It is allowed, it
is expected, it is shared in the peculiar shadowed privacy of the
crowd. She tells us that if the story ever gets too much for us, we
can call out Amanda, I'm too sad!, and she would immediately
pause and play the opening chords of her very popular and very funny
song, Coin operated boy. She did this twice for us, and I for
one, was grateful.
[On a personal
note: I have a digression which it pleases me to tell, though it may
distract from the flow of my story. The intermission reaching its
end, Amanda once again entered the hall from behind us, this time on
the left, strumming her cherished four stringed friend. As my
partner and I were seated on that edge, Amanda saw the long brown
pheasant feathers adorning my partner's hair. Amanda paused to say I
like your head. To which my partner replied, Thank you, I
like yours too. Now, back to the concert...]
She told us one
particular story that I will try to relate.
Having written a
song telling an abortion and date rape story, she had been criticised
by the press for making light of the topic. Her critics claimed that
the song was basically a rape joke. Amanda fussed and fretted,
describing to us her early attempts to defend herself, but concluding
that she felt she did not succeed. She could not find the right
words at the time to explain herself. Later, she concluded, she
found her answer.
It is her job to
turn the dark into light.
She is an artist.
She wished that she
had said to her critics: Let me do my job.
We get it. We're
her crowd. We understand the black humour of this modern poet, this
forward thinking woman of the new century. In so many ways she
speaks for us, expressing our own experiences in a manner so
compelling as to inspire a sense of personal attachment. Each of us
feels lucky to be in her company, we feel invited into her, into the
vulnerable parts of her own life which she narrates to us with the
courage to make jokes about even the darkest aspects, yet she never
stoops to disrespect, not towards herself, or others. Even her
critics.
I cannot in good
faith conclude my story, without telling you about the stage
lighting.
It
were as if lightning struck the stage to ignite her words.
...as
if the smoke and shadows were her sorceress familiars
and
she,
the
summoner,
the
conjurer,
wreathed
in the magic
of
light beams stark and calamitous
or
coloured
blooms of liquid luminance
or the
portending red glow of doom
leading
to darkness
all at
the touch of her hand
...the
stage lighting at this show was exquisite, in its timing, in its
execution, in its trickery and play and subtle moods shifting with
the state of the story being told, or the song being sung. The
lighting made the stage a location of enhanced reality, emphasising
the presence of this grand speaker and her grand piano into a drama
of powerful music, and transformative storytelling.
Amanda
Palmer made light in the darkness.
I know
of no other magic as powerful as this.
*
Review
by Morgan Taubert.
Youtube:
Zebulon Storyteller
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