On Wednesday night last week Amanda Fucking Palmer's concluded her three day Village Underground residency, having thrown extravaganza for the kickstarter supporters who helped Amanda and the Grand Theft Orchestra raise $1.2 million to release their new album ‘Theatre is Evil’. This was followed on Tuesday by a more intimate gig, the free ‘ninja’ show, whilst the final night at the Village Underground was a multi faceted ‘Amanda’ experience with a queue round the block.

The venue, with bricked walls, high ceilings and skylights provided the perfect backdrop to an evening slowly built up by Jherek Bischoff and his beautifully informal string quartet, to Andrew Oneil’s comedy act, which was pitched to an unusually interactive audience, ending with some really heated cabaret from Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra. 

The music was a mesmerising communion of cabaret, rock and orchestra, focusing on the interactive experience and connection with her fans. Palmer's intense and magnetic performance of ‘I’m Not the Killing Type’ started the set off with passionate, mental, vocals. For ‘Missed Me’ every bar of music the band would swap instruments so that eventually everyone had played everyone else’s instruments, which got the whole crowd laughing.

Text by Lily Bonesso