from the bowels of the BBC, a photo catch-up from newcastle, dunfermline + glasgow (Patreon)

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my loves, my loves.

greetings from BBC's maida vale studios, where i am rehearsing for neil's big christmas/new years extravaganza show with the BBC symphony orchestra. jherek bischoff, my partner and soul-collaborator-arranger, did two pieces for me to perform for this huge show that neil and the BBC put together. one is something you might guess, and one is a total surprise. i took a risk. if it comes out okay, i’m going to THING the symphony recording. it’s like jumping off a fucking cliff. 75 piece orchestra, no second chances, wheeeee, here we go. maybe i’ll just stop surprising you with these things and actually tell you what i’m doing so you can mourn along with me if things crash and burn. probably i should.

sitting here with a crap cantina sandwich and a machine coffee, the classical rehearsal music that the symphony is running through at the moment is digging into my heart and i am crying every few minutes just because i'm such a currently weird combination of grateful and tired and existentially-attuned and in love with music and art and yet also feeling those terrible imposter feels i feel around all orchestras (don't forget: i still can't read music, so why are they handing me this microphone?) and....just.....generally overwhelmed. you can tell from the run-ons. 

(photo by simone george)

maybe not. maybe simply: whelmed.  

what does that even mean, amanda? i don't know. i think things are just going very fast at the moment and my processors are clogged. beginning to read your comments from last night made me feel more connected and less alone.

so many of you are so fucking smart and so fucking kind and i forget that i should ask you for support and simply....chatting more often. i miss that. 

tomorrow is a huge day of rehearsals and dress-up and photographers, and i feel my priorities swinging in the breeze. there’s about another two weeks of this and then things finally calm the fuck down. 

but before i complain any more, let’s all admire jherek bischoff‘s direction to the BBC symphony orchestra for a second. how much do we love this man? 

and a reminder that jherek is here on patreon and you should support his amazing work

mostly i have needed to catch up on the photo-posting from tour, so once again, this is a very photo-heavy and text-light post, but gabrielle motola's photos tell beautiful stories, so bam, that's why we hired her, to keep things connected.

before anything else, gaby didn't make it to NEWCASTLE, but connor kermode, alex-the-merch-queen's beautiful partner, stepped up and played photographer:

there we are, loves. a small but loving clump of people.

a word, while i have you, about connor and alex, by the way.

alex has been on this entire euro-tour, slogging it away at the merch table, dealing all day with boxes and posters and shirts and books and the thousands of hours that go into packing up and unpacking merchandise that rarely gets appreciated by the average person.

alex has been working so, so hard. thousands of you, by now, have met him doing his thing behind the merch table, and you may have met connor as well. here they be, and thanks and glory be to the two of them. merch is a hard job, and i'm so grateful to these two for helping me out night after night after night while we took this show from town to town:

.............

working backwards....and back to gabrielle photoland.

here we were, in dunfermline, at carnegie hall. and as it was pointed out to me by douglas mackinnon (neil's director pal from good omens who lives in these parts), the ORIGINAL CARNEGIE HALL. okay, good to know.

i love this photo. i had no idea what to expect of this tiny-weeny town in the wilds of scotland but it was - i kid not - one of the strongest nights of the tour. it was made even more awesome by the fact that our house crew was all-female (you'd be shocked, wait no you wouldn't, but that NEVER happens). 

i went out into the audience before the show, as the house was filling in, and took requests. i was tired. mostly, i needed to talk to people in order to stay awake, because coffee at 7pm is a bad idea.

the lovely audience, as photo'd by gaby.

alex, taking a rare breather:

backstage...

whatever liquid this was, it wasn't working....

this was a really wonderful accident-gift.

the microphone started feeding back during the start of the show when i took it away from the piano, and so i asked the audience in the balcony if they could hear me without a mic. they said they could. so i proceeded to do almost the entire storytelling part of the show with no microphone. it was a revelation of sorts, especially when i got to the section after “voicemail for jill” - talking about how frustrating and yet predictable it was that i was dismissed from the tv-airwaves in ireland for wanting to play it. tv won’t broadcast it. the radio won’t play it. 

as i’ve mentioned a few times, there’s been very little mainstream newspaper coverage of this tour. and yet. 

and yet, even without their support, i have played this show, and that song, for almost 50,000 people so far. 

city by city. 

night by night. 

old-fashioned style. getting on the road, going town to town, sharing some stories. 

the final monologue of the show last night - in that rainy little theater for 300 scottish people - was the most powerful it’s ever been. 

this is the work. this is the job. 

don’t wait for the media. 

be the media. 

here's the dunfermline patron-crew. even smaller than newcastle. but filled with SCOTTISH POWER. 

THEN IT WAS GLASGOW. 

i went to a beautiful little cafe/shop called east end creative, and was inspired by another woman in the shop who had just ordered this bespoke shirt (that’s what they do there, they print custom shirts for you)....to get my own version of the same one. 

glasgow brought it in the all-gender bathroom department...

backstage ...

this man is a man i love. this is chris cunningham, my friend from edinburgh who has been my chosen family for years. i was so glad he was out there with mary. i love them both so much. 

THE PATRONS OF GLASGOWWWWW

gaby got a rare shot of me collapsing in my tour bunk on the bus. this is where i hide and sleep. 

the end...

hayley and i are working hard on the althing and i have so much to say and share but very little desk time this week. 

we are gonna get through it. 

we built this city on rock and roll. 

thank you all for being here, being my community, being my family. 

more soon. 

xx

a

------THE NEVER-ENDING AS ALWAYS---------

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UPCOMING SHOWS:

Sun Nov 24 – Portugal – Braga – Theatro Circo

Thu Dec 5 – UK – London – Union Chapel (SOLD OUT)

Fri Dec 6 – UK – London – Union Chapel (SOLD OUT)

Fri Dec 13th - UK - London - Union Chapel (SOLD OUT)

Sat Dec 14th - UK - London - Union Chapel (SOLD OUT)

THEN DOWN UNDER:

Mon. Dec 30 — Wed.. Jan 1 - WOODFORD, QLD - Woodford Folk Festival

Thurs. Jan 16 — Sat. Jan 18 - LAUNCESTON, TAS - Mona Foma Confessional

Mon. Jan 20 - LAUNCESTON, TAS - Princess Theatre, Mona Foma

Wed. Jan 22 - MELBOURNE, VIC - Hamer Hall

Fri. Jan 31 - BRISBANE, QLD - Brisbane Powerhouse

Sat. Feb 1 - BRISBANE, QLD - Brisbane Powerhouse

Fri. Feb 7 - CANBERRA, ACT - Canberra Theatre

Sat. Feb 8 - SPRINGWOOD, NSW - Blue Mountains Theatre

Fri. Feb 14 — Sat. Feb 15 - ADELAIDE, SA - Bonython Hall, Adelaide Fringe 

Thurs. Feb 20 - SYDNEY, NSW - Enmore Theatre

Sat. Feb 22 - PERTH, WA - Perth Concert Hall, Perth Festival (**NEWLY ANNOUNCED**)

Sat. Feb 29 - DARWIN, NT - Darwin Entertainment Centre

Thurs. Mar 12 — Fri. Mar 13 - AUCKLAND, NZ - Auckland Arts Festival: Hollywood Avondale

ALL TICKETS: https://nointermission.amandapalmer.net