I wanted to write about the Dresden Dolls concert we went to on Friday night, mostly for my own remembrance but also because it was an oddly beautiful experience, full of unexpected humor and energy and humanity, and I wanted to share that with you even though most of you probably haven’t ever heard their music (which you should remedy post-haste).
The Dolls describe themselves using the words “Brechtian Punk Cabaret,” an epithet which nearly every newspaper article and CD review mentions at some point and which I thought I’d get out of the way quickly, because while it’s an evocative turn of phrase and meaningful in some ways (Amanda’s lyrics are Brechtian I suppose, in that they’re very detached, sort of anti-romantic explorations of darkly funny aspects of human behavior and experience; the music is kind of fairground-piano-punk-rock; they often perform in makeup and costume) I suspect that it’s becoming a limiting description for the band. At least, I find it limiting because it implies a kind of stylized, highly crafted performance ethos and what I saw on Friday was more like two people beginning to reveal themselves with kindness and honesty, without the need to be ornate.
They have a lovely young neo-goth/ren-fair/arty-geek following, and they encourage/invite interactive art/performances, which they call “brigading,” at their concerts — so there was a little block party going on on the sidewalk outside the Orpheum before the show, with people in costumes and tattoos and chalk on the asphalt and glass balls and whirling and makeup and skin and silver and bowler hats and flowers. The vibe was gentle, though, and although Ross and I weren’t dressed up we didn’t feel unwelcome or out of place. We went in and got ourselves a couple of cups of overpriced beer and watched everyone, smiling at the crowd and each other. It was like being at a festival. A radiant woman dressed as a cigarette girl with a box around her shoulders stopped us to announce that I’d gotten my glasses from Eye-Q (indeed) and I took a postcard from her; Ross won a button from a white-faced mime. After a few minutes Amanda appeared out of nowhere, the hostess of our party, riding on the shoulders of a big bearded man. Leaning out into the throng she jovially chided us for not going into the theater to hear the first kick-ass band that was opening for them. Everyone laughed and whooped softly, nobody mobbed her, and she disappeared as quickly as she’d come.
Ross and I tossed our plastic cups in the trash and climbed three flights of stairs till we got to the upper balcony, a million miles away from the stage (but with a great view of the peeling ceiling!) and fumbled our way to the approximate location of our seats — no lights, and the numbered brass plaques on the rickety armrests are mostly broken or missing in the Orpheum. It didn’t matter that we were so far away, because we’d brought Evelyn and Maury’s old opera glasses, which we flipped open and used to examine the tattoos and make-up of fellow audience members, and to peer at Porsches On the Autobahn, the band Amanda had invited us in to see. They’re a fabulous pseudo-German shouty rappy suit and sunglasses-wearing foursome with absolutely no singing voices but a hysterical sense of style and comic timing.
They were followed by a mildly irritating (but undeniably talented) sword-swallower/circus manager, a hula-hooper who stripped to flowers-on-her-nipples and underwear, and another Boston-based opening band, the very operatic Human Wine — which Ross and I both loved. They sound, and kind of look, like what you’d think might happen if characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas came to life and decided they wanted to write political songs. In other words, they were rather wonderful.
After an hour or so of all this, Amanda and Brian — who’d both appeared on stage at various points in the proceedings, joining in the cavorting — came on to do their set at last. They opened with the sharp and sinister (but very funny) “Sex Changes,” the song which also opens their new album Yes, Virginia. Brian was in his black bowler and a red t-shirt, which he discarded during song #2 or 3, and Amanda was bare-faced, wearing a black t-shirt that said “Roxbury” on it (I think — best my opera-glasses would do for me), black velveteen hot pants, garters, and the black and white striped thigh-highs she’s got on, among other places, at the end of the Girl Anachronism video. (I envied her garters, having spent most of my day tugging up my own over-the-knee socks.)
The fact that Amanda and Brian weren’t in makeup or costumes was a reflection, for me, of the way the rest of the evening felt — intimate, essential, and real. The only theatrical aspect of their appearances was the fact that they both looked very much like great tall skinny spiders, stretching and poking at the webs of their instruments all night: Brian perched all long limb and arching stick behind his drumset, Amanda tipping over towards her keyboard and sharply sliding her left leg behind her right every few minutes like a gangly puppet doing an exaggerated parody of a curtsey, or pulling a knee up till it almost met her chin. Sometimes she stood one-legged, like a crane, like she was about to take off.
They played a good long set of songs from both their albums and a bunch of covers, including a third-time-lucky version of Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love” which they were trying to record for a friend’s wedding next month and which they spent several minutes fucking up gloriously before they found their keys and made it through. Also, wild things, this surely must have been a shout-out: they put Sendak’s Pierre to music. ;-) They were loud and soft and sweet and roaring, tender and tinkly and dark and beautiful, and best of all they played Half-Jack with what must have been a five minute introduction on piano and drums that had my heart pounding in rich anticipation for that first line. I sat back in my seat and watched Amanda’s hands — she played with the entire surface of her forearms, with the heels of her hands, the sides of her palms, as if she wanted to cover the keys with her skin.
They played an encore that started off sweet and turned anthemic, Amanda chuckling as she told us how she’d written “Sing” in response to an argument she’d watched their fans having on the internet, over whether or not it was ok for the audience to sing during a concert. I grinned, thinking about how annoyed I’d gotten with the long-haired girls behind us whose sibilant whisper-singing I could hear all through the soft songs, pulled Ross to his feet and hoped his lungs were pushing out his voice as loud as it would go.
And then it was over and we walked out, holding hands and smiling at each other. On the way home I said to Ross what a generous performance it was, and he thought I meant how many songs they played — but really I was talking about how much of themselves they’d given us, and how clear it was that they enjoyed their guests, including a fantastically sweet and hysterically funny Sparkle Motion-like band of girleens they’d invited on stage wearing boas and glittery heels.
So that’s my long post for the weekend, folks. Go listen, go watch a video, go buy a CD. Because the Dresden Dolls might look like a couple of freaks, but they’re really a couple of sweethearts. Don’t tell ‘em I said so though.
