THERE WILL BE NO INTERMISSION: review/reflection/ramble

I don't write very much.

But I wanted to write my thoughts on Amanda Palmer's new album.

There Will Be No Intermission.

It is absolutely beautiful. It is one of the most cohesive and stunningly beautiful albums I have ever heard in my life. I would say it’s probably the most cohesive album that Amanda has ever made. 

I listened to it for the first time back in October, on a long train journey, me and my headphones as I stared out on the green countryside. From the moment The Ride started, I could tell this was a beautifully arranged and thought-out album, staying true to the songs that we have heard, but adding just enough production to give them a real spark of life.

Following The Ride comes Drowning In The Sound, which made me absolutely die and almost audibly squeal. But that’s one of the few ‘joyous’ points of the album (if you can even call it that, while talking about climate change and internet hatred). But the rest of the album is almost unrelentingly dark, and it’s depressing, and we go through death, and sadness, and abortion, and yet it still manages to feel real.

At points along the path to this album’s creation, I got a bit worried that some of Amanda’s writing was becoming dark for the sake of being dark. It’s underlined and emphasised by the artwork - and, like the songs, at first, I was uncertain about a full-frontal cover. I wondered if it was shock nudity for the sake of shock nudity. 

But I was wrong about all of it. Hearing the songs all here together, like this, produced in this way, they don’t feel like darkness for the sake of darkness. The cover doesn’t feel like shock nudity for the sake of shock nudity. It feels like honesty. It feels like raw emotion. It feels like somebody who has been exposed to a lot of darkness and negativity - not just in her own life, but in the entire world around her - and has been ground down, shaken to her most vulnerable, and then created this entire work about the darkness of life. Because There Will Be No Fucking Intermission in life.

Almost every song here sounds the best it has ever sounded to me. Bigger On The Inside has gone from a repetitive strained dirge (and I don’t mean that as bad as it might sound) to a swelling, atmospheric piece. Machete has added knife sounds and samples, creating a song that could almost sound jaunty and fun, if not for the underlying tension and urgency, building up every time to dissolve into the chorus.

And finally, it all culminates in Death Thing, and its gorgeous climactic resolution, and it really feels like watching a piece of opera reaching its finale. And I realise, that’s what this album is - it’s theatre. It’s opera. It’s fucking ART. 

It’s not a collection of songs. It is, definitively, an album, in the very old school sense of the word. It is a start-to-finish, cohesive, linked piece of work. The interludes really help to tie the album together, and solidify it as A Piece Of Work. It’s not a collection of songs. It is an Album, in the very old-school sense of the world. 

That’s partly why I’ve been a little put out by people expressing less-than-excitement, because they’ve heard (almost) all of the song on the album. Because, it’s true. You’ve heard the songs. But you haven’t heard The Album.

And, for all of the people worrying about songs being altered, my advice is to not. These songs have undergone some serious improvement, and now they finally feel like finished, beautiful songs.

But more than that, this album is, in itself, a beautiful, cohesive collection of songs. The demo versions of Machete, or Bigger On The Inside, or The Thing About Things, wouldn’t have fit on this album. There’s a beautiful consistency between all of the songs. They all belong here.

It reminds me a little of something Tori Amos said about her album “From The Choirgirl Hotel” - that all of these songs live their own lives, but this is the moment at which they’re checking into the hotel, and this is what they sound like while they’re in the hotel. So, the previously recorded versions of these songs (because to me, it doesn’t feel entirely right to retroactively label them as ‘demos’) still very much exist, just as their live renditions exist. But these are the versions of the songs that belong on the album. 

So, in conclusion… This record is really fucking good. REALLY fucking good. It is important for today’s culture, and it is a beautiful no-holds-barred expression and exploration of the darker side of life, and I sincerely hope it gets recognised and rewarded for the beauty that it is.

diaries of a touring merch queen

right. okay. let's crack out this blog again that i appear to use once a year. 

10 days ago, amanda palmer began her uk tour. as her resident uk merch queen, i was recruited to oversee merchland. and as my boyfriend, connor was recruited as driver of the merch. 

here are the exciting diaries of what it's like to be a couchsurfing merch queen on the road in the uk. contained in these chronicles: lots of driving, drunk people, potential fires, and some throwing up. it has been quite a tour of excitement. 

(also, a note: there are a couple of venue staff that are described here somewhat negatively. and in case word magically gets back to any of them, then soz, but also bear it in mind next time you work with people that you're working with real life people and if you act rude towards them then they do tend to think you are a rude person. so... sorry not sorry.)

THURSDAY 3rd MAY - PREPPING in LONDON

we spent most of thursday packing up the car. for context, what we were required to bring was:

• 690 CDs (four different albums)
• 152 12" vinyl (three different albums)
• 170 7" vinyl (two different singles)
• 90 books
• 45 tote bags
• 422 t-shirts (two different designs, sizes S-XXL)
• 25 posters

i don't know how good your mental visualisations are, and i forgot to take a photo of it gathered together. but all put together, this equates to a metric fuckton of THINGS. 

and for comparison, here is a photo of connor's poor car. 

when i started writing this blog i intended to go outside and take a photo of the actual car, but it's taken me 2 hours and 4,000 words later i literally do not have the energy. so here is a stock photo:

but. we managed. 

and then we packed up our bag of merch queen equipment, containing:

• rubber bands
• paperclips
• safety pins
• clothes pegs
• bulldog clips
• string
• masking tape
• sellotape
• scissors

and finally at about 2am, we got to sleep.

FRIDAY 4th MAY - SHOW DAY at SAGE, GATESHEAD

the plan friday morning was to wake up, leave our house at 9am, and then we had to stop off at a screen printing studio in north london at 10am, to pick up 400 hand-screened prints we got done especially for the tour. then according to google it should take us 5 hours from there to gateshead, getting us to the venue by 3pm. PERFECT.

here is us in the car surrounded by all of the merch. not that you can see most of the merch because it is behind the screen. BUT. it is there. believe me.

rush hour traffic meant that we got to the printers at 10:30. not the end of the world. we also stopped for kfc for a quick half an hour, because some chicken for the journey is always vital.

and then, about 2pm we were driving along the motorway, and the GPS started adding time to our journey... 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. meanwhile we were sat going nowhere.

then i realised it was bank holiday friday, and of course the entire world is trying to go somewhere, anywhere, for the bank holiday.

we drove past the angel of the north. how lovely.

so fast forward to 5:30pm, an hour before doors, and we FINALLY arrive at the venue. we get a trolley and like madmen we begin unloading ALL OF THE THINGS from the car onto a trolley, then take the trolley through the venue, into the lift, out of the lift, across the foyer, and to the table. so we begin frantically setting up, now with 35 minutes before doors and still with all this stock to organise into workable piles, a table to set up displays and prices signs. 

and then the venue contact comes over to inform us that unfortunately, their staff member who was supposed to be helping us out with selling had just called in sick. so since i would be assisting with the signing queue after the show, connor was selling alone. soz connor.

by some miracle of jesus, we pulled it together and 10 minutes after doors opened (WHICH WAS IMPRESSIVE GIVEN HOW MUCH WE HAD TO DO IN HOW LITTLE TIME, OKAY???) we were set!! yay!!!!!

here is captain merch queen, stressed but we made it

and here is assistant merch queen, with his lovely merch display that we concocted. he complained that in this photo he looked like he was a nerd at a science fair. i told him he looks v cute.

everything ran smoothly, we got to eat burgers during the first half of amanda's set, and then she decided to have a spontaneous intermission. 

i snuck in to watch the second half of the set, and it was beautiful. though the people i was sat next to left half way through the bed song. connor told me afterwards that apparently they walked out bawling their eyes out, and told him that the show was beautiful but there was just TOO MUCH DEATH AND SADNESS FOR THEM TO HANDLE so they had to leave. but they still bought a shirt. 

after the show, like a good little merch queen, i settled up with the venue their cut of our sales and asked them how quickly they needed us to pack up, and what time they'd be leaving. "oh, there's no rush, take your time" they told us. 

that's what they told us.

15 minutes later, while we're packing the last boxes, all of the lights in the entire building go out.

so we have to load boxes onto the trolley and then navigate the trolley back out into the car park using only the torch on our phones.

so, uh... so much for "take your time" lol.

but then we had a quick drive across gateshead, and went to visit the lovely lisa who offered us a place to crash through the AFP patreon facebook page. 

SATURDAY 5th MAY - TRAVEL DAY to LEICESTER

we woke up at our leisure on saturday, which was a blessing after the traumatic 9 hour journey on friday. then we nosied around lisa's house and her wonderful collection of nerd memorabilia (and also blondie on the bathroom wall!!! my spiritual home). her cat also decided she wanted to play with connor, so climbed onto a table and then launched herself onto his shoulders. quite the excitement.

then we had a fairly sedate 3 hours drive from newcastle to leicester, to visit my friend katy and her lovely family. katy was actually out in london all day when we got there, so her kids let us in. but it was just as well, because i had caught some sort of weird tonsilitis/sore throat/viral THING from somewhere, and so we were let into katy's house at about 4pm and i proceeded to spend 4 hours lying horizontally on her sofa, feeling like somebody had wrapped a scarf around my neck and was gradually pulling it tighter and tighter around me, all the while tickling my tongue with a razorblade.

but still, katy arrived home in the evening and dosing myself up on paracetamol and ibuprofen we still managed to have a wonderful catch up and she made me laugh a million times as she always does. 

SUNDAY 6th MAY - SHOW DAY in BIRMINGHAM

woke up sunday still feeling like that scarf was being pulled tight around my neck, but the razorblades on my tongue had quit, so at least i could swallow like a normal person. 

we also did counting of stock, i filled in my spreadsheets and made sure everything balanced up between the money we took and the things we had sold in gateshead, after being unable to get myself up from a horizontal position on saturday.

then we left leicester at 3:30, knowing it takes about an hour to get to birmingham, thinking we would be there delightfully on time at 4:30. instead, we got to the venue and discovered roadworks right outside. so we followed the directions from the production team, except they neglected to mention the final turn that led us to the front door. instead, we ended up driving down a dead end. and then the only way to get back was to drive an entire 10-minute circuit of the one way system, which we dutifully did. and that time we got confused by the GPS and went under a tunnel, once again missing the turning for the venue. so we did a third circuit of the one way system, and finally arrived at 5:30, once again leaving us just an hour before doors. 

but this time we had prepared, and left half the tour stuff at katy's house, so we had far less to count in and organise, so we were actually able to be ready for doors. YAY FOR US!!!

other than that, birmingham was quite an uneventful show.

i snuck in to watch bits and pieces of the show again. and my painkillers started wearing off and we had forgotten to bring any, so i was very tired and very much in pain, so i sat alone in the back row of the theatre and had a little weep while amanda played mrs. o

MONDAY 7th MAY - SHOW DAY in LIVERPOOL

woke up monday and did my usual filling-in of lots of spreadsheets about what we had sold in birmingham. 

then we realised that we were halfway through our last roll of till paper in the card machine. and i realised the machine hire company had left no instructions for where to acquire more, just told us that it was vital we retained all of our receipts.

cue a frantic google of shops that might sell till roll. i found exactly what we needed online on ryman, so i called the leicester branch and spoke to a delightful lady.

"hi, i was just wondering if you have the thermal till rolls in stock, size 57 by 38"

"let me just check. what was it?"

"thermal till rolls, 57 by 38."

"bear with me."

...

"what size were they again?"

"57 by 38"

"okay, bear with me"

...

"was it 57?"

"57 by 38"

"38?"

"57 by 38"

"okay, bear with me"

...

"we have 57mm till rolls in stock."

"are they 57 by 38?"

"they just say 57. your best bet is to look online."

"i've found the item online, i was just wondering if you had them in stock."

"well your best bet is to come in and check."

so we decided that we better had just drive into leicester and see if they were indeed the right ones.

as it turns out, they only had 57 by 57 size, but all that meant was that there was too much paper rolled onto them. so we had to spend part of the show unrolling part of the roll so it was thin enough to fit in our machine. but it worked!!!

on our way out of ryman, before heading to liverpool, we stopped at greggs and picked up some sandwiches and connor got a hot chocolate for the road. then on the way back to the car park, he discovered he had forgotten to put the lid on properly after stirring his drink. he discovered this, unfortunately, by attempting to drink it and instead spilling it all over his little belly.

then he got very angry and threw the rest of his hot chocolate on the car park floor.

but ONWARDS TO LIVERPOOL!!!!!

we arrived at st. george's hall, and my GOD it is a beautiful venue. 

we wandered around a little bit, trying to find the actual hall where amanda would be playing.

instead, we ended up wondering down a corridor and inadvertantly stumbled upon a room with this notice:

(which, if you can't read it, says "court in session")

uhhhhhhhh.

the liverpool show was nice.

here is me behind our lovely table.

and here is me in a lovely selfie that took about 20 minutes and several positions (and also connor holding the phone several times to make it look like i was taking a selfie without getting the weird arm angle). but still. an excellent final result, i'm sure we can all agree.

people were allowed to leave to go to the bar at any point during the show, but security was holding the doors and only letting them back in between songs. except when i went to try and go in, amanda was playing "a mother's confession" (the 11 minute song), and after about 7 minutes there was a crowd of 15-20 people standing waiting to be let back in. so security mumbled "bloody long song" and just let us all in anyway. 

at one point during the show, as people were getting up, amanda jokingly complained that nobody had bought her a drink yet. so a gentleman stood up and asked what she wanted, came to the stage and mumbled with her a bit. then sure enough 5 minutes later he came back in armed with two drinks for her. then he called out that she was invited to his after party. delightful.

at the end of the show, i came back in to watch the last song before the encore - "sing". on of my absolute favourites. after the song, she went off stage for the encore. then the aforementioned drunk gentleman walked over to where i was standing, and got rather uncomfortably close to me, and said "i'm a huge amanda fan." so i said yes, very good. then he looked at me and said "you're also quite beautiful." and i was not entirely sure if he said that, so i was like um ok good. anyway, he was then staring at the stage and not paying attention to my response anyway. but then he looked back at me and said "but i'm a massive fan and me and amanda have a thing so i have to go and see her" and then ran past me, ran straight past security, and legged it to the backstage area.

i flagged him down to security, who raced in after him, and momentarily escorted him back out into the foyer. 

while amanda played her last song, i came down to check how connor was doing at the merch table. all grand. and then this very same drunk gentleman popped down and looked at both of us and told us both how very beautiful we were. then he informed us he would like to kiss us both. so we politely said no thank you. then he said all 3 of us should go somewhere. so we once again politely declined. then he stared at us in the eye and demanded to know why we wouldn't go away with him, telling us our jobs were not important and that we should go away and kiss him and have a good time. 

at this point i felt decidedly uncomfortable, so once again flagged down venue staff and told them that this guy - the very same who had already tried to run backstage to find amanda - was now harassing us. venue staff said yes they knew and they "had their eye on him". quite what exactly their plan of action was is anybody's guess.

apparently while i was doing this, he also continued talking to connor and telling him that obviously i was the boring one, so the two of them should go off together while i was gone.

SO THERE'S THAT. 

no other excitement happened that night, but we made our way back to my school friend emma's flat, and crashed almost immediately.

TUESDAY 8th MAY - TRAVEL DAY to CARMARTHEN

i think i will say that tuesday was our least eventful day. i woke up at 7am, meaning to see emma before she went to work. instead i went back to sleep and woke up again at 9am, so we got to have the briefest of catch-ups.

then we headed into liverpool and saw my university friend annie for yet another catch up/brunch. for i am a worldly man with friends in all parts. we also did some most excellent charity shop shopping.

then we began our long drive to wales. we stopped en route at kfc and finally, the 5th kfc that we visited on tour, i finally got the skittles krushem that is my favourite thing ever in the world. it was pure bliss.

then we took a long long drive down to the middle of nowhere in wales, to the airbnb cottage that we were renting for the few days between shows. and also met greg, my friend (who is also my ex, it's a long story (not that long, we were in a relationship and then we weren't but we still get on very well and are very good friends)) who was sharing the airbnb with us. 

here is me and connor outside the cottage.

also hidden behind one of the doors under the stairs we found a baby's crib with a little elephant tucked inside. not at all sinister.

we had indian takeaway and i told the man in the indian that we were there for a show at the lyric theatre and he should check it out and come to the show.

i also invited our airbnb host to the show. 

gettin dat promo.

on the way back from the airbnb we saw a cat inside a big circular treadmill. it was quite a thing of wonder. sorry that the photo is terrible. i realised while taking it that the lady was also sat in the front room and could quite clearly see what i was doing. 

then we played board games until i was ready to lose consciousness.

WEDNESDAY 9th MAY - DAY OFF in CARMARTHEN

i lied. maybe wednesday was the least eventful day. so uneventful i have wiped it from my memory. 

i know we did some stock counting and i filled in lots of spreadsheets.

we went into carmarthen and discovered it is absolutely tiny, and lord knows how or why amanda ended up playing in this town in the middle of the welsh countryside.

i went to the bank to deposit the merch takings from the first three shows. while i was there i also informed the nationwide employee that our show was at the lyric theatre on thursday, and that she should come. she seemed mildly interested. 

we also found a castle that was very exciting. it allegedly had a "jail cell experience" which sadly was out of action for renovation work. here is connor enjoying the castle.

also in the evening i took a lovely bath using a new jelly bomb from lush. i wasn't sure what i was expecting, but it just ejected a load of black jelly into my black bath. so i looked like a bird caught in an oil spill. exactly my desired aesthetic. 

THURSDAY 10th MAY - SHOW DAY in CARMARTHEN

i blame greg. i entirely blame greg 110%.

the very last thing he said to us as we left the cottage for the show was "it's okay, the show won't be as bad as that drunk guy in liverpool"

so we get to the show and everything seems quite pleasant. we set up nice and early. we have time to go to the wetherspoons across the road before the show. i had a steak, connor had a chicken korma.

everything was going swimmingly. well, other than the fact that we were in the middle of the welsh countryside and so the card machine had no signal and thus did not work. 

i watched the first half of the show, coming out just before the interval. connor says to me "i needed to go to the bathroom and i don't feel too well, but you didn't reply to my text". i inform him that, as we discovered, signal is non-existant and he should have gotten the wifi code and whatsapped me. but he says he is fine now. 

and then while selling during the interval, someone comes rushing up to me.

"HI, I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU NEED TO TELL, BUT FIND SOMEONE FROM THE VENUE BECAUSE THERE'S A FIRE OUTSIDE"

and then runs off again.

so i'm like uhh okay?????? so there don't appear to be any venue staff in the foyer (though it's a tiny foyer with about 400 people that have just come out of the show, so very difficult to actually see anything), so i go outside to see what's going on. 

the corner of the building has a little hole in it, about the size of a fist, with smoke pouring out of it. someone shouts out "THERE WAS A FIRE INSIDE THERE BUT WE THINK WE PUT IT OUT BUT IT'S STILL SMOKING"

but then i notice that the venue manager has come out and is looking at it so i figure it's safe in her hands. back in i go.

the second half begins, the audience goes back into the auditorium, so i assume the fire is under control. there's a handyman going backwards and forwards from the backstage area to the potential-fire area outside. carrying a hammer, a saw, god knows what he's doing out there.

the venue manager then starts asking about signing - what sort of table amanda wants, how many chairs, etc.

while all this is going on, connor is sat in a chair. then he looks up and says to me "i don't feel too good." so i say ok, please go outside or to the bathroom make your choice quickly. and he says "i'm going to get a plastic bag." so i'm like ok sure but... then.... the bathroom or outside. please.

he picks a plastic bag up from beside the merch table. begins walking towards the bathroom. and then throws up........ all down the side of the carrier bag, and straight down onto the floor. and continues to do so all the way from the middle of the foyer into the bathroom and into the cubicle, leaving a trail of what-was-once-chicken-korma behind him. 

uhhhhhhhhhh.

then the manager comes down from upstairs, on the phone to somebody about the fact that the smoke alarm upstairs is going off and it smells of smoke but they can't find a fire.

and then she sees that the foyer is covered in vomit.

and god bless her, at least she laughed.

so first of all she's running round trying to find the first aid kit with the cleaning supplies, find a mop for us, find some powder to clean it up. 

while simultaneously talking to me about where to find a table for amanda's signing.

while simultaneously a man is walking backwards and forwards with his DIY tools doing some kind of witchcraft on the fire upstairs.

while the staff from upstairs are coming down like "uhhh it's really smokey up here-- OH MY GOD WHY DOES IT SMELL LIKE SICK DOWN HERE" and spraying an entire can of air freshener all over the building.

and then throughout all of this, this person in full drag, clearly very intoxicated, is wandering round in the background crying out "I HAD A YELLOW FAN, I CAN'T FIND MY YELLOW FAN, HAS ANYONE SEEN MY YELLOW FAN?!?!?!"

so since connor's clothes were slightly covered in vomit, he had a spare jumper he changed into, but didn't think to bring spare trousers. the only thought i had was that maybe andrew o'neill (amanda's hilarious and also very lovely comedian support act) might have some spares with him. so i ask the manager to see if she can take me backstage. 

so she takes me to the backstage door, except she can't remember the code. she gets more and more irate trying to guess it, ending up just banging her hand on it, knocking on the window. but obvs andrew isn't inside.

so instead we have to go outside, walk round the theatre to the stage door and get in that way.

we find andrew side of stage, so have to quietly gesture to the security guard to please get andrew's attention. andrew comes off, i explain the situation. and he's like uhhhh i only really have my super skinny jeans, and i don't wish to cast aspersions on connor but......

(that mental image will be much funnier if you know andrew and know the skinny jeans he usually wears)

BUT! he did actually manage to find some lovely mountain warehouse shorts that, praise jesus, managed to fit connor. 

so uh..... after all that excitement..... connor came back out, feeling horrendously guilty but also much, much better, and assisted with the cleaning up.

meanwhile i tried to hurriedly help the manager pop a table out for signing, when at 10:45 she suddenly remembered she was meant to order a takeaway for amanda's dinner. unfortunately the takeaway closed at 10:30, but she begged and cried at the owner and he stayed there long enough to make some dinner. so at least no angry amanda. 

and after that....... the rest of the show was fine. except i was 100% exhausted. and we got back to the airbnb at about 2am, and i set my alarm for 5 hours sleep. yay.

FRIDAY 11th MAY - SHOW DAY in BATH

no rest for the wicked, is there? woke up at 7:30am ready to pack up the entire cottage so we could be gone by our check out time of 10:30.

it's really quite a magical skill of mine that whenever i get anywhere, i unpack all of my belongings to take up approximately the entire space i have been afforded. seriously. put me in a cupboard and my stuff will fill the cupboard. put my in an entire cottage and somehow i will spread around the entire cottage. 

so we spent 2 hours hurriedly packing (both our stuff and also all the merch) and then decided we had time to sit and relax for an hour and watch the new episode of rupaul's drag race. (honestly, most underwhelming lipsync ever, tbh.)

we got to bath at 2:30, and were told that we had a parking space outside that was indicated by cones.

there was a van already between these cones.

so i went into the venue, and found a very friendly manager person, and introduced myself.

"we weren't expecting you this early."

"ok that's not a problem! we can go off for a bit and come back when you're ready, do you know what time we should get here?"

"not this early. we're expecting you later."

"yep that's absolutely fine! what sorta time?"

"not til later. they're still busy setting the stage up. go and talk to one of them."

side note: it's actually REALLY interesting how venue people treat us as merch sellers.

because of the way amanda works her tours, we are classed as the team which means we get full crew privileges - AAA access, catering, etc etc. 

if you don't stick an AAA pass on your chest, some people will be all too happy to literally see you as people who are flogging merch, totally unimportant, not worth their time and not worth talking to other than to point you to a table and then come and take money off you at the end of the night.

anyway. i found one of the people who the van belonged to, he said they'd be done by 3. so we went and sat in our car reading our book (i am reading a series of unfortunate events to connor, we are currently up to "the miserable mill") until 3. then at 3:15 we noticed the van was still there. so instead we just got a parking pass and, with the blessing of the bath festival contact, left our car sat on the double yellow lines, and began unloading our merch onto the wonky-wheeled trolley that the venue had lent us.

all went well during the show, we sold a decent amount of stuff.

amanda had come out a few shows prior and signed a whole bunch of the new screen prints, and somebody came to buy one - but unfortunately, we were once again in an area of no signal, so no card machine, but we directed to a cash machine. sadly, by the time she came back we had sold all of the signed prints. so since i felt bad, i said i would leave them backstage and have amanda sign them after the show.

so after the interval i went to try and get them backstage, but hadn't been shown where it was. so asked a helpful venue usher, who said he would find someone to take me.

the someone he found was the same manager as earlier, who this time just looked at me and said "well what are they even for? does she even know they're coming?" with a tone of voice that suggested i was a randomer who'd walked in off the street and was asking to go backstage, as opposed to a member of amanda's working crew.

the show itself was spectacular. especially "half jack". god. what a song. what a way to end a show.

my parents also came to see the show. they enjoyed it. my dad told amanda it was nice to hear coin-operated boy played by her instead of me, for once. and my mum got her ticket signed. amanda told me after that my parents are cute. lol.

so after sales died down, the venue needed to have a breakdown of everything we had sold (as opposed to just being given a cash figure, which we usually give to venues). so we update the till app we'd been using on our ipad, and start trying to work out all the numbers for them. the person responsible watches us for about 15 minutes while we do it, and i check with her whether she definitely needs it tonight or whether we can email it to her later. she says nope, it needs to be handed in with the money so we need it tonight. so i sighed, and back to work we go (11:45 by this time, and they initially said they wanted us out of the venue at 11:30)

so we are still going over it 5 minutes later, when we hear her ringing and ordering a taxi to come now. and so me and connor look at each other like........ well we haven't finished your sheet but okay. sure enough, a couple minutes later she comes back and is like ok cool don't worry about the spreadsheet, just email it to me cos i need to go, byeeeeee.

so, super glad we spent 15-20 minutes trying to figure that out for her.

shortly afterwards, our favourite venue manager comes back again.

him: i'm just going to leave the keys here for you to lock up, cos we're all going home.

me: (nice and friendly but also precisely 0 time for ur bullshit) okay yeah that's fine, no worries, just show me what to do.

him: i'm clearly joking. but how long are you going to be? we need to go.

me: it'll be as long as it takes to finish packing up these boxes and packing them into the car. 10, 15, 20 minutes?

him: let's call it 10 minutes.

and i'm thinking okay, well unfortunately we just spent 15 minutes trying to write out your table that we were told was vital we finished tonight, only to then be told your staff member was going home and so she couldn't wait for it, so like, if we hadn't done that we would have been packed up by now. 

but never mind.

we were out by 12:30 and headed back to my parents' house.

by this point i felt terrible. a combination of exhaustion and stress and dehydration and running on adrenaline for several days was all catching up on me, to the point where i got into bed at 1am, slept for about an hour and then woke up sick after terrible anxiety dreams about counting tshirts, lol. then got back to sleep for another couple of hours and once again woke up sick with anxiety dreams about counting tshirts.

tour life is hard.

but on we go.

SATURDAY 12th MAY - TRAVEL DAY to LONDON

after eventually getting to sleep properly, i slept all the way til midday, and woke up feeling absolutely fabulous. 

we spent a couple of hours mooching around my parents house, before we finally headed home.

got home and it was pouring with rain, so we spent another 15 minutes just sat in the car too exhausted to move from the car. 

eventually we did.

we counted all the stock leftover from tour, and i filled out lots of spreadsheets and made sure the numbers added up. they mostly did.

then we watched the cabin in the woods, which i think in our 2 year relationship is the first time connor and i have ever watched a film that we both enjoyed equal amounts. then we had an early night and i fell asleep before midnight which is uNHEARD OF.

SUNDAY 13th MAY - SHOW DAY in BRIGHTON

brighton was the easiest and least stressful thing i have ever done in my life. lol.

we only had to pack the car with one show's worth of merch (praise jesus)

we got there and it was a nice venue with super helpful staff who were lovely.

we had a venue helper who was experienced in both event selling and retail selling, so she was great.

here is me in brighton being very exhausted but also very glad to have slept in my own bed for a night.

at one point i went in and took a photo, except i made the rookie mistake of having the flash on, and an attendant came over like um excuse me, you can't take photos.

and i tried to whisper like oh it's ok amanda's fine with photography.

and she was like no, no photography.

and i'm thinking uhh i was literally there when her tour manager was explaining to your staff that photography was accepted. but whatever. i just smiled and said okay. 

then she saw that i had an artist pass and said oh. okay. just uh, don't tell the rest of the audience. 

also david shrigley is the guest director of brighton festival (which amanda's show was part of) and they had cute david shrigley tshirts. and i got one at a discounted price and i was very happy.

and at the end of the night my friends cookie, marla and sarah were left in the foyer as we were packing up, so we got to end the show chatting to them while we packed up, nobody from the venue was poking us to hurry up. my friends helped us carry stuff to the car, and for once we got to end the show chatting and laughing and having a lovely time, instead of being tired and grumpy and dealing with grumpy venue staff.

it was beautiful.

then we also had a festival-funded hotel room for the night, which was v fancy and also came with both a double bed and a single bed, and connor said he would rather have a single bed to himself than share a double, so i got a double bed all to myself to spread out all night long. it was glorious.

MONDAY 14th MAY - HOME TIME!!!

today.

we woke up. 

we had an all you can eat buffet breakfast at our fancy hotel.

then we drove home.

we did some more counting.

i did some more spreadsheets.

i organised all 300-odd receipts from the card machine so that we could return it to the hire company.

then i decided to write a blog.

still to come: norwich next weekend, 2 teeny-tiny patron-only shows in london the week after, and then dublin the week after that. but they are all very spread out. this seems like the bulk of tour, and a logical place to pause and write an entire small saga. 

on "twin peaks: the return" parts 1 & 2

wow.

wow.

wow wow wow wow wow.

so i have a confession:

twin peaks is hit and miss for me.

i know that it has been collectively adopted by a certain faction of society as the Best TV Show Ever. and either you think twin peaks is an Amazing Work Of Genius, or you don't get it and you aren't into it and it is Not Your Thing. i have very rarely seen people in the middle.

and don't get me wrong: parts of twin peaks ARE genius. laura palmer's murder. the log lady. the red room. everything about the core of twin peaks, i find amazing and fascinating and i adore it.

and then, i think dale cooper is cute with his damn fine coffee. i adore nadine and her silent drape runners.

but, for me, the soap opera element always slightly outweighed the supernatural element, and that made me a little bit sad. but it's why my favourite parts of twin peaks are the supernatural parts. and it's why i couldn't care less about the josie/catherine/mill subplot, or james going on his weird quest, or the mayor's new young wife.

overall, i would give twin peaks probably 8/10 as a complete package.

and then.... THE RETURN.

i do not remember the last time an hour passed by so quickly as watching part of twin peaks: the return.

we are straight into a recap of the red room, and then we open with dale and the giant (or ????? as he is credited...) and from there, it's one scene after another that is fully plot-focused, and fully into the supernatural mythology that was always slightly hidden in the original series.

honestly, the return does not feel like a third season of the show. it feels like a sister show, or a cousin show. it's taken ideas and themes from twin peaks, and it's magnified them, explored them, and turned them full force into a huge supernatural thriller show.

and i am LOVING it.

the few original characters that popped up in parts 1 and 2 seem pretty much irrelevant. other than dale cooper (of course) and log lady (who, of course, acts as some sort of link between twin peaks and the other realms), and hawk..... nobody else seems important. lucy, andy, jacoby, ben, jerry, shelley, james, sarah. it feels like they're all there almost as cameos - just to remind people that david lynch and mark frost are at the helm. reminding us that we are seeing something take place in twin peaks. other than that, the show could pretty much function entirely without them.

and i am totally okay with this.

log lady is the only character i was genuinely pleased to see (god bless catherine coulson). i am totally happy to have everybody else relegated to side roles.

if this entire series is going to be about dale, bob, the red room, the black lodge, and we get a whole bunch of creepy and unsettling scenes for the next 18 hours, SIGN ME THE FUCK UP.

so interestingly, i have listened to a lot of twin peaks podcasts today. and almost all of them have expressed a little wariness about this very thing - about the fact that this doesn't seem exactly like twin peaks. that the upbeat joyousness has gone. and i guess if you fully adore twin peaks for everything that it was before, the complete mish-mash of soap opera and supernatural, then this new series may be a bit disconcerting at first. because there is no soap opera to be had here.

it's like lost, but if they knew what they were doing.

it's everything i have ever wanted in a tv show.

give me all of those extended shots, all of those uncomfortable silences, all of those unbearably bright lens flares, all of the backwards talk, all of the sticks and brains and mystery.

give it all to me.

I WANT IT ALL.

this is everything i have ever wanted from twin peaks, since the very first time i saw cooper's dream in the red room and thought "wow this scene is so fucking weird" and totally, utterly fell in love with it.