AFP - Platoon – Berlin.

One Fucking Million. Amanda Palmer is more than a musician. She is a movement.
We Are The Media is the message.

In a fundraiser that ended May 31st, Ms Palmer raised $1.2 million through crowd-funding website, Kickstarter, making hers the highest funded project in the site's history.

Fans pledged between $1 and $10, 000 for various packages, ranging from a digital download of her recently recorded album, to art, gigs, private house parties and intimate dinners with the band, amongst other treats.

This is the future of music - This is how we fucking do it is her statement; since the tumultuous split with Roadrunner Records in 2009, Palmer has been the poster girl of the people, remaining unentangled from major labels and relying on her charm, talents and loyal, growing fan base to realise her projects.

A junk yard cabaret queen, wielding a ukelele sceptre, singing from the top of a giant pile of rubble, a giant pile of cloying questions of the internet era eradicating the value of recorded music. The thing which sets Amanda Fucking Palmer apart from the rubble is her honest interaction and relationships with her fan base and a willingness and ability to bridle social media and ride it around like it's her bitch.

She ranks amongst the twitterati, not many artists have the drive or interest to engage with social media as intensely as she has, nor the trust in their audiences.

I attended a gig which was a part of the Kickstarter tour, an art opening and acoustic show for backers who had pledged $300. As well as the intimate show with free food and booze, backers also received the album on CD or Vinyl, a signed copy of the art book - based on the works at the exhibition, and a ticket to a plug in show.

At the event, backers also received bulging screen printed tote bags; amongst the merch. and paraphernalia was a solid collection of Sharpie's as well as second hand novels hand-selected by AFP, who schmoozed about the gallery in a saucy, shiny, high-split striped ensemble, chatting to fans like a glamorous, gracious host, checking out the exhibition. There was a big mix of work , more than 30 artists were commissioned by her, the collection was mostly paintings and prints, both portraits of Palmer and works inspired by her music. I was surprised by the quality and gladdened by a situation where artists were finding a new audience.

The atmosphere was expectant, excited, almost anxious with the anticipation of not knowing what was to come. What did come was quite unimaginable.

The first act was a solid unit of a man. A veritable Jean Valjean, a figure wonderfully incongruous with his lacy nightgown and outlandish make up. A cabaret darling, brandishing a musical saw and a smile to be reckoned with. The whole crowd raised a happy amount of androgyny and oozed delicious romance, and after a prosecco fuelled pause gathered around a string quartet led by Jherek Bischoff, Bassist for the Grand Theft Orchestra, Palmer's brand new band. The quartet played arrangements by Bischoff which were impressive, delicate and beautiful. He has a new solo album. David Byrne is involved. I needn't say more.

Rapture was broken when the lights suddenly switched off. Alarms sounded. A flurry of bodies pushed through the darkness, throwing around mixing bowls and melodicas, handing out torches for audience members to clutch, revealing a dramatic costume change in to remarkably less and the ridiculously handsome Grand Theft Orchestra, surrounded by a tiny, quiet, attentive crowd, the band fed on the excitement on our little faces and let loose, belting out songs from the soon to be released album, Theatre Is Evil.

They pounded out the jump up and down track The Killing Type and swiftly moved into intense dramatics with a meltingly slow cover of Nirvana's Polly. I admire Amanda Palmer for her visuality as much as her music, the show was an absolute feast. Armed with Bloody beetroots, celery and love for instruments, the night was teeming with romance, it was a deliciously sexy evening.

Leon Payne's Psycho and Trout Heart Replica maintained bloodstained, dark thematics. The songs from the new album were big and tumultuous, lush and full of pop, punk rock punch, even acoustic.
If you told me that a cover of Radiohead's Idioteque on ukelele, melodica, keytar and a chopping board could be ethereal, moving and beautiful I would probably snort and giggle at you. But here I am, telling you, complete with vocal harmonies, it was haunting and lovely.

The stand out track of the evening was The Bed Song, accompanied by the string quartet and heart rending theatrics. I'm sure I wasn't the only glaze-eyed audience member denying the lumps in my throat. She started the song curled foetal on the floor, at the feet of the audience on a small rectangle of fabric, which as the song progressed, she unfolded, until she sat singing, isolated on an empty bed, with fierce eyed intensity.

The set list ended with the Ukelele Anthem, an epic homage to the humble instrument, involving a long list of twitter sourced lyrics and the underlying message that this machine kills the machine and that trust in art is more than tiny futile fists being shaken at the man, it can disengage cogs and put artists in the supportive hands of their audience.

In Amanda's case, both figuratively and literally. When the songs came to an end, the charismatic queen of punk cabaret stripped herself of all regalia, revealing the infamous map of tasmania and asked the audience to find the aforementioned sharpie's and take to her naked form. A wave of sharpie clutching limbs surged towards her, holding her up and scrawling notes of love from her big toe to her brow, smiling all the while, with trust. A terrifying amount of it, it made my heart fast. This huge interaction is breaking down walls and creating a larger dialogue where the audience takes responsibility for the artist. This trust is not only empowering the artist, it is empowering the audience.

Review by Emily Jackett