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growyourwingsI have some photos from a small venue performance she did here in PDX last weekend.
I'll be honest and admitI'm old I didn't know who she was when my friend Rebekah said she had an extra ticket and did I want to go. I checked out her music online and while it is not my typical genre of music, I found myself intrigued by it. So I decided to go.
Then Rebekah said she was Neil Gaiman's wife and I went all fan-girly. Had vague hopes that he would show up. But alas, no.
Still I had a wonderful time. It was for a local fund raiser and was a very small venue and a small group of people. One of the opening acts was a girl group called The Doubleclicks, who wrote and sang fandom filk songs!!!! Star Trek, other sci-fi shows - it was cool.
Later in the evening while Amanda was singing/playing piano/ukelele for us, she commented that she wished Neil had come because we were "his people". :) She seemed to be having a great time. Mingling with us and performing and telling stories. Her piano pieces are wonderful.
I really found myself enjoying her music. One in particular really grabbed me both before, during and kept playing in my mind afterwards. I'll like to a video of it. But be aware the video is NSFW as it contains nudity. I love the special effects in this video.
.
Again, this is not my typical music. But I really found myself enjoying it.
And I loved taking the photos of the audience and Amanda. After I posted them on FB, I had all kinds of Amanda "f*cking* Palmer (aka AFP) fans coming out of the woodwork to comment and send me messages. Was kinda cool. :)
Here's a link to the Flickr album with all the photos - there are a lot.
Below and under the cut are some of my favorites along with stories from the evening.
above :: Paul was the MC for the night. Very sweet fellow.
above :: This guy was showing the reason for the fund raiser. This is some kind of electronic book that is being used in Africa (?) to help villagers with medical and crop information. It evidently got some big write up in several magazines and won some awards.
above :: The DoubleClicks. Great gals. Funny as heck. Filk singers. Amanda (on the left) friended me on FB afterwards. They are a local PDX group. The DoubleClicks are sisters. They are a daughters of a music professor for some well known (to musicians I assume, not to me) musical college back east. He's had appearances on several morning shows about some unique mixing technique classes he teaches (I guess.) He was linked to the photos and commented on them. My favorite of his comments was "This makes me more happy than I can tell you." That kinda made my day - making a father smile about his children.
above :: they are celebrating because Amanda asked them to sing one of her songs with her.
above :: Ukelele's seemed to be a theme of the night. Amanda uses a ukelele often and has a ukelele anthem that she closed the night with - it was fun! A woman traveled down from Vanc BC (and also later FB friended me) to give Amanda a ukelele she had painted for her (see directly below, not my photo). Amanda ended the evening playing on it.
above :: two photos above of the DoubleClicks.
above :: between warm up bands, Amanda came out and mingled. My friend Rebekah (on the left) is a HUGE fan of Amanda's. Rebekeh is normally very outgoing but when I suggested I get a photo of her with Amanda, she ran out the door! When she came back, I sweet talked her into it. As long as Rebekah's friend David was between them, she said she could remain standing up. Afterwards I told Rebekah that since I had absolutely no vested interest in Amanda, who I had not yet talked with or heard perform, I had no inhibition around going up to her to ask for a photo. Now if it had been Jensen or Jared - then Rebekah would have had to do this for me! ha!
Above: Amanda enjoying herself with the crowd.
above :: this girl's hat kept catching my eye so I took several photos of her. She later contacted me and wants me to do a photo shoot of her and her vintage clothing.
above :: This is the second warm up group (they actually played first, my photos are a bit out of order). The Alamedas.
above :: I thought it was cute that the lead guitar of this group kept blushing at all the attention he was getting.
above :: the girl on the cello must have a huge family and/or friend base. I had so many comments and likes on this photo after she was tagged in it.
above :: Noirin (I think that was her name, something like that anyway) who arranged the fund raiser.
above :: a close up of Rebekah's belly dancing belt.
above :: Paul came up to me shortly after I arrived to ask that I take a lot of photos and got my contact information so he could get the photos later since he was MC'ing and wouldn't be able to take many himself.
above :: Rebekah getting fangirly over Amanda.
above :: standing in line to get in. Behind you can see the poster for Literacy Bridge. Which is the charity the fund raiser was for.
above :: this girl entertained the line with juggling and jokes while we waited.
above :: Paul introducing "AMANDA F*CKING PALMER".
above :: After listening to Amanda and watching her with the crowd and listening to her stories, I've come the conclusion that this woman is amazing. She's very passionate. Very colorful. Very forthright. Has had a very interesting past, including being a stripper (more about that later), and marrying Neil Gaiman - one of the most famous (to geeks) comic book writers of all time. But inside she's all soft and gentle. For SPN peeps - think of Jensen's character in One Inch Hero. Hard looking on the outside, soft center. Just like that. It became more and more apparent as the night wore on and her shields started to drop as she mingled and told stories.
above :: these next several photos are early on as she is asking the group what songs they want. She moved to sit at the piano which was on the other side of the small group from me. She suggested we all sit down since we had all been standing for about 2 hours. There were no chairs, so we sat on the concrete floor (oh my poor knees.)
So some of the photos while she was performing were blocked by a few people in front of me. At the time that bugged me. Later when I went through the photos I found several really interesting shots through the haze of the audience. So I ended up being pleased. The lighting was low, so I had my ISO up very high and thus many of these are grainy. But i still love them. I was glad that my SPN con experience enabled me to know how to take these without any flash.
above :: Amanda starts to engage with the group and tell stories. Evidently she recently discovered Twitter. She was in PDX at the time and tweeted that anyone "listening" should meet her at a local PDX strip club. She called it a strip club flash mob. There were a few folks in the group who had gone to that. This was so much like a recurring SPN con, where people make a point of coming back and engaging with her in any way they can. She went out to laugh and say it wasn't as "cool as it sounded". They ended up at a strip club sitting at tables with about 30 people. They said it was fun - but nothing outrageous.
above :: Amanda really belts out her songs.
above and below :: some of the shots through the haze of the audience.
above :: Here is where she paused to tell a story. She had mentioned being a stripper earlier in her life and made a comment about "maybe I'll tell you more some day." So when she paused, someone in the audience asked for a story. And this is where I really thought she showed her true personality. She told this very sweet story about a young college guy who wanted her to just "tickle him" for 1-1/2 hours. She got all soft sounding and soft smiles and kept putting her hand to her heart as she was describing it. Very sweet.
The story went on for a while and I have a lot of shots of this. Below are just a few more in that sequence.
above :: Amanda ended the evening playing the ukelele that was painted for her. Playing her Ukelele Anthem.
above :: and saying goodnight and that wished Neil could have come to "be with his people."
=D
I'm glad I went.
.
I'll be honest and admit
Then Rebekah said she was Neil Gaiman's wife and I went all fan-girly. Had vague hopes that he would show up. But alas, no.
Still I had a wonderful time. It was for a local fund raiser and was a very small venue and a small group of people. One of the opening acts was a girl group called The Doubleclicks, who wrote and sang fandom filk songs!!!! Star Trek, other sci-fi shows - it was cool.
Later in the evening while Amanda was singing/playing piano/ukelele for us, she commented that she wished Neil had come because we were "his people". :) She seemed to be having a great time. Mingling with us and performing and telling stories. Her piano pieces are wonderful.
I really found myself enjoying her music. One in particular really grabbed me both before, during and kept playing in my mind afterwards. I'll like to a video of it. But be aware the video is NSFW as it contains nudity. I love the special effects in this video.
.
Again, this is not my typical music. But I really found myself enjoying it.
And I loved taking the photos of the audience and Amanda. After I posted them on FB, I had all kinds of Amanda "f*cking* Palmer (aka AFP) fans coming out of the woodwork to comment and send me messages. Was kinda cool. :)
Here's a link to the Flickr album with all the photos - there are a lot.
Below and under the cut are some of my favorites along with stories from the evening.
above :: Paul was the MC for the night. Very sweet fellow.
above :: This guy was showing the reason for the fund raiser. This is some kind of electronic book that is being used in Africa (?) to help villagers with medical and crop information. It evidently got some big write up in several magazines and won some awards.
above :: The DoubleClicks. Great gals. Funny as heck. Filk singers. Amanda (on the left) friended me on FB afterwards. They are a local PDX group. The DoubleClicks are sisters. They are a daughters of a music professor for some well known (to musicians I assume, not to me) musical college back east. He's had appearances on several morning shows about some unique mixing technique classes he teaches (I guess.) He was linked to the photos and commented on them. My favorite of his comments was "This makes me more happy than I can tell you." That kinda made my day - making a father smile about his children.
above :: they are celebrating because Amanda asked them to sing one of her songs with her.
above :: Ukelele's seemed to be a theme of the night. Amanda uses a ukelele often and has a ukelele anthem that she closed the night with - it was fun! A woman traveled down from Vanc BC (and also later FB friended me) to give Amanda a ukelele she had painted for her (see directly below, not my photo). Amanda ended the evening playing on it.
above :: two photos above of the DoubleClicks.
above :: between warm up bands, Amanda came out and mingled. My friend Rebekah (on the left) is a HUGE fan of Amanda's. Rebekeh is normally very outgoing but when I suggested I get a photo of her with Amanda, she ran out the door! When she came back, I sweet talked her into it. As long as Rebekah's friend David was between them, she said she could remain standing up. Afterwards I told Rebekah that since I had absolutely no vested interest in Amanda, who I had not yet talked with or heard perform, I had no inhibition around going up to her to ask for a photo. Now if it had been Jensen or Jared - then Rebekah would have had to do this for me! ha!
Above: Amanda enjoying herself with the crowd.
above :: this girl's hat kept catching my eye so I took several photos of her. She later contacted me and wants me to do a photo shoot of her and her vintage clothing.
above :: This is the second warm up group (they actually played first, my photos are a bit out of order). The Alamedas.
above :: I thought it was cute that the lead guitar of this group kept blushing at all the attention he was getting.
above :: the girl on the cello must have a huge family and/or friend base. I had so many comments and likes on this photo after she was tagged in it.
above :: Noirin (I think that was her name, something like that anyway) who arranged the fund raiser.
above :: a close up of Rebekah's belly dancing belt.
above :: Paul came up to me shortly after I arrived to ask that I take a lot of photos and got my contact information so he could get the photos later since he was MC'ing and wouldn't be able to take many himself.
above :: Rebekah getting fangirly over Amanda.
above :: standing in line to get in. Behind you can see the poster for Literacy Bridge. Which is the charity the fund raiser was for.
above :: this girl entertained the line with juggling and jokes while we waited.
above :: Paul introducing "AMANDA F*CKING PALMER".
above :: After listening to Amanda and watching her with the crowd and listening to her stories, I've come the conclusion that this woman is amazing. She's very passionate. Very colorful. Very forthright. Has had a very interesting past, including being a stripper (more about that later), and marrying Neil Gaiman - one of the most famous (to geeks) comic book writers of all time. But inside she's all soft and gentle. For SPN peeps - think of Jensen's character in One Inch Hero. Hard looking on the outside, soft center. Just like that. It became more and more apparent as the night wore on and her shields started to drop as she mingled and told stories.
above :: these next several photos are early on as she is asking the group what songs they want. She moved to sit at the piano which was on the other side of the small group from me. She suggested we all sit down since we had all been standing for about 2 hours. There were no chairs, so we sat on the concrete floor (oh my poor knees.)
So some of the photos while she was performing were blocked by a few people in front of me. At the time that bugged me. Later when I went through the photos I found several really interesting shots through the haze of the audience. So I ended up being pleased. The lighting was low, so I had my ISO up very high and thus many of these are grainy. But i still love them. I was glad that my SPN con experience enabled me to know how to take these without any flash.
above :: Amanda starts to engage with the group and tell stories. Evidently she recently discovered Twitter. She was in PDX at the time and tweeted that anyone "listening" should meet her at a local PDX strip club. She called it a strip club flash mob. There were a few folks in the group who had gone to that. This was so much like a recurring SPN con, where people make a point of coming back and engaging with her in any way they can. She went out to laugh and say it wasn't as "cool as it sounded". They ended up at a strip club sitting at tables with about 30 people. They said it was fun - but nothing outrageous.
above :: Amanda really belts out her songs.
above and below :: some of the shots through the haze of the audience.
above :: Here is where she paused to tell a story. She had mentioned being a stripper earlier in her life and made a comment about "maybe I'll tell you more some day." So when she paused, someone in the audience asked for a story. And this is where I really thought she showed her true personality. She told this very sweet story about a young college guy who wanted her to just "tickle him" for 1-1/2 hours. She got all soft sounding and soft smiles and kept putting her hand to her heart as she was describing it. Very sweet.
The story went on for a while and I have a lot of shots of this. Below are just a few more in that sequence.
above :: Amanda ended the evening playing the ukelele that was painted for her. Playing her Ukelele Anthem.
above :: and saying goodnight and that wished Neil could have come to "be with his people."
=D
I'm glad I went.
.
