Concert Report: Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra, Pumpehuset, 31 October 2013

I didn't quite know what to expect, except maybe to expect the unexpected. And boy, was I in for a treat. This was unlike anything I'd ever seen in a concert setting - a very close relationship between stage and performer. Amanda and her band were even seen in the wings during the support acts' sets, enjoying themselves immensely. And there was stagediving, with Amanda wearing a cutaway coat with an impossibly long, wide and thin train that we the audience got to spread out in its entirety. That must've looked amazing from the stage.

There were three support acts: Jherek Bischoff, who played bass (and some ukulele), a band which I think was called Simple Pleasures, the lead singer reminded me a bit of what Bono must've been like in the Dandelion Market days, and then Danish singer Lydmor, who blew me away. She seemed so fragile at first, but she delivered an amazing set, and later came back to duet with Amanda.

On to the main act - everyone in the band came onstage wearing awesome skull makeup in honour of Halloween, except Amanda, who turned up at the other end of the hall, with her ukulele, and started off with 'Creep'. Okay then!

As the evening progressed I heard a lot of songs that I didn't know, seeing as I only really know the Radiohead stuff and 'Theatre Is Evil', but I'll be sure to check out her back catalogue now. 

Pictures below are courtesy of the lovely Ida Salomäki that I met outside the venue when it started raining, and she extended her umbrella to me, and we ended up hanging out together all evening in the front row :)

After the show Amanda signed autographs, and Ida and I tried to calm down a bit from an absolutely mindblowing evening. This was NOT my last Amanda Palmer show for sure :)

Set list below is courtesy of http://www.setlist.fm/:

Acoustic from upstairs: Creep (Radiohead cover) (ukulele)
Grand Theft Orchestra Intermission
Do It With a Rockstar
The Killing Type
Missed Me (Dresden Dolls cover)
Want It Back
Walk On The Wild Side (Lou Reed cover)
Half Jack (Dresden Dolls cover) (very long instrumental intro)
Lost
Solo piano set (crowd requests)
Ampersand (Amanda Palmer cover)
The Bed Song
Delilah (Dresden Dolls cover) (duet with Lydmor)
Bottomfeeder (incl. Walk On The Wild Side)
Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana cover)
Oasis (Amanda Palmer cover) (incl. Shake It Up, Baby)
"Vi skåler med vore venner" (Danish drinking song, all stars)
Leeds United (Amanda Palmer cover) (all stars)
Encore: Girl Anachronism (Dresden Dolls cover)
Encore 2: Ukulele Anthem

Elfia

Yvonne and I had been talking about this Fantasy Fair for a few years, and this year we managed to get to go to the one in Haarzuilen, near Utrecht. It was fantastic! So many people dressed up and totally got into the spirit of the thing - very inspiring!

There were lots of Elves (and here I mean Tolkien's kind), steampunks, zombies, maidens fair (but I don't remember seeing any bears), warriors, pirates, vampires, orcs, various types of outfit involving hooped skirts, a good few Meridas and Jack Sparrows, a couple of Mr. Tumnus's, Snow Whites, Pikachu's and Storm Troopers, an awesome Witch King of Angmar, and some fantastic cat warriors, whom we only saw in the line for tickets, and not again, unfortunately. And of course there were loads of fairies, of all types.The surroundings were breathtaking and the whole thing was a lot bigger than I thought it would be, which was only a good thing!

Here's me in front of the castle - Yvonne had done a brilliant job painting my face :) I am of course wearing my blue Elf dress, with the In Dreams shawl.

This is the spiderwoman-fairy. There were many professional photographers taking pictures, presumably of the people who'd signed up for the contests. Many of them clearly had characters to go along with their costume and had spent considerable time and effort on it.

We walked around looking at the many stalls offering an abundance of cool stuff - corsets, swords, dresses, teeth, ears, tiaras, you name it.  There was music, LARP workshops, and an area dedicated to The Hobbit, with various small sets and people dressed up as characters from the story, obviously taking their cue from the movie.

This woman was probably my favourite of all - we stood in line behind her at the loo at one point, so got a good look at her outfit. Really really lovely.

2012 - The Year In Knitting

Tally: 54 projects finished in 2012 + one or two that didn't make it to Ravelry. Out of those 34 ended up in someone else's closet, whether or not that was the intention from the outset. A lot of those projects were really small and quick, like the crochet necklaces I made for Christmas gifts, and there weren't as many big lace shawls on the menu this year compared to last year.

Speaking of shawls, I've made 18, large and small, and 6 of those were for me - that's down from 2011, where I ended up with 8 new shawls out of 27 made, but instead last year I made cowls - 13 cowls in total, 4 of which are mine today. I've done well using up stash, and judging from my WIPs right now, I'm going to do better on that score in 2013. Yay! Yarn diet has not held up so well, but mostly I've only bought stuff needed for presents - although I didn't really need a 1000g cone to do one single Evenstar shawl... *cough cough* It could've been worse - resisting temptation builds character, right?

I've made more sweaters than the previous year, which is closely connected to the knitting-from-stash thing - because sweater projects are what my stash mostly consists of - 3 pullovers and 2 cardigans, where in 2011 it was only the one cardigan. I've had a good mix of simple and complex projects, and I've tried a few new things, and am now totally in love with garter stitch and shortrows....

In keeping with the theme from last year, here are pictures of my 6 lovely new shawls, clockwise from top right (pattern + designer):

Line Break by Veera Välimäki, Color Affection by Veera Välimäki, Diantha by Susanna IC, Stonecrop by Jared Flood, Rockefeller by Stephen West and Hitchhiker by Martina Behm.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

If you haven't read the book or seen the movie yet, and intend to do one or both, skip this post. There will be spoilers :)

Anyway, went to see the first installment in the The Hobbit trilogy on 16 December. When I got home, I had to check up on parts of the LOTR appendices, and the Tale Of Years, to try and get a handle on the changes in timeline. There are a lot of changes in the movie compared to the book. Some were plainly necessary, given the evolvement of certain characters between The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings (that would be Gandalf).

First off, I have to say that casting was spot-on. I loooooved Martin Freeman as Bilbo, and Richard Armitage as Thorin. The dwarves were pretty well cast as well. Purely for his looks, I adored whoever played Thranduil - I so want a copy of that crown, one of the most Elvish things I've ever seen. I don't really understand why the enmity between Thorin and the Elves had to be underscored, because the only reason I can think of has to do with the massive difficulty you'd have explaining the whole business of the Nauglamir in this context. I loved seeing more of Rivendell, and being back at Back End, this time knowing that if I do go back to New Zealand, I can go to Matamata and see the hobbit houses there for real.

Most of the changes I get, and most of them don't have massive impact on the main story as I see it. For example, Gandalf calling the eagles through a bug when caught in the trees, the same way he did when imprisoned on the roof of Orthanc, where in the book, the Lord of Eagles hears the noise of Wargs and Orcs and heads off with his posse to explore, thus discovering the party in distress and carrying them all off.

Two changes continue to annoy me. One is that we see Gollum losing the Ring. This contradicts the scene shown in ROTK where we see Bilbo finding the Ring while alone, which is as written - he puts his hand on it by chance in the dark. That point is entirely lost in this new movie. It annoys me just as much as Aragorn chopping off the head of Sauron's Mouth in ROTK, which is also in direct opposition to what is written, because it is specifically said by Aragorn that Sauron's Mouth cannot be harmed due to his status as emissary.

The second thing comes at the very end, where the party has come to the Carrock and are looking across Mirkwood and seeing a very near-seeming Erebor. That scene is for me too much of an echo of the last scene of FOTR, where Sam and Frodo look across Emyn Muil towards Mordor. It made sense then - it does not now, and I thought it was a very cheap shot.

But, I am looking forward to the next movie, and to more background stuff - White Council and Dol Guldur and all that - but not the journey through Mirkwood, for obvious reasons...... 

Ready Set Spin!