archGFX

The Dresden Dolls show last night was everything I imagined it would be.

We got there late, partly by our own fault, and partly by the armitage bus taking forever. We missed a bit of the one man band, but got there in time for the human beatbox. The whole event was about half evil circus and half rock show. All the cool goth kids were dressed up and face painted, and there were a couple of people on stilts wandering through the crowd (i don't know if they were hired, or just reeeeally into it).

Rather than having the standard slew of opening bands with half an hour of dead air in between, they have a 'showcase' with a dance art troupe (seventeen), the lord of yum-yum, and an MC/one-man-band, who came on stage both before and after the rock openers, The Red Paintings.

The Red Paintings were awesome, despite having all their pedals and electric guitars stolen. Somehow the violin, bass, and drums weren't taken, and they managed to hang onto one acoustic guitar. Since they don't have a label to buy them new ones, they just played as they were. I picked up their $15 EP, despite it being overpriced, since they seemed to need the money, the way i need more dense, dark, overdramatic music.

also, their website has some free MP3's you can check out.

The Dresden Dolls were phenomenal. besides playing their rock-cabaret hearts out, they managed a drum solo transition from 'mandy goes to med school' to 'half jack' with little piano interludes. They also brought out some of the seventeen troupe during 'delilah', who basically stood there looking sad. I'm not a fan of that song to begin with, and that certainly didn't help. Amanda's voice is all the more amazing for the fact that she spent the entire time nearly doubled over on the keyboard, foot up on the keyboard support, and playing up the silly and demented. The set was pretty straightforward otherwise, they played mostly yes, virginia songs, and blasted through them with little introduction or transition.