Last Night: The Dresden Dolls – Halloween at Irving Plaza NYC
Some things can’t be adequately described in words. Last night was one of them. 
On the tenth anniversary of the fateful Halloween party in Boston where Amanda Palmer met Brian Viglione, The Dresden Dolls reunited after a two-year hiatus for a sold out show at Irving Plaza. The significance of their first meeting ten years ago was clearer than ever: these two belong together.
Having seen them perform one of their last pre-breakup shows in 2008 and having seen them play separately since (Amanda at the Spiegeltent in NYC in ’08 and Brian with World/Inferno at Hallowmas that same year), and seeing them now together again, I can say with certainty that each are strong musicians and great performers but that something indefinable happens when they take the stage together. Their musical chemistry is electric; the crowd feeds off it, gives it back; the Dolls bounce it right back to the crowd. And what happens is bigger than two people onstage, bigger even than a jam-packed venue of loving fans. For lack of a better word, it’s magic.
As with so many bands whose live show is superior to their (already great) records, you have to see the Dolls perform to fully appreciate what all the fuss is about. Take my word for it. There’s something genius in the simplicity of two percussionists (the piano is a percussion instrument, after all) playing off of each other’s musical cues and body language in a sort of rhythmic dialogue. Brian and Amanda are like twins who anticipate what the other is going to say. And they’re even more in sync now than they were two years ago — it seems the break has left them supercharged.
The Legendary Pink Dots, who Amanda has always cited as her favorite band and number one musical influence, kicked off the show. After their set, a giant screen hid the stage and showed a Halloween-themed movie clip montage while an equally appropriate soundtrack played over the P.A. When “Sweet Transvestite” came on, the audience sang along, complete with Rocky Horror inside-joke callouts (“Say it!!”). It foreshadowed the singing to come.
Overheard:
Girl: I wonder if a lot of Rocky Horror fans are Dolls fans?
Guy: I’m pretty sure there’s some overlap.
When the Dolls appeared, the house erupted. Brian appeared sans Halloween costume (but later revived the Dolls’ trademark bowler hat); Amanda wore something resembling a caped Checkpoint Charlie uniform, the jacket of which was of course eventually ditched in favor of a black lace bra. The duo kissed, the message obvious to those who knew the high tension that split up the band two years ago.
They opened with “Sex Changes” and played for — are you ready for this? — two hours and thirty-five minutes, almost non-stop. The crowd knew every. single. word. of the set, comprising twenty-one songs (by my count), that included five covers:
– “Pirate Jenny” – by Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill (fromThe Threepenny Opera) – Amanda sang it in English
– “Pierre” – by Carole King – with Brian doing the “I don’t care”s
– “Double Rainbow” – from the YouTube phenomenon; it ended with a rainbow of balloons falling from the ceiling
– “Mein Herr” – from Cabaret – with Brian on acoustic guitar and Amanda, in a gold sequined bra, writhing on a platform, stage-right
– “War Pigs” – by Black Sabbath – and it sounded massive with Amanda on piano and Brian’s metal-influenced drumming at its best
They hit all the big Dolls tunes, most of them from the self-titled album and from Yes, Virginia, and they touched on “Glass Slipper” from A is for Accident and two from No, Virginia (“Ultima Esperanza”, “The Kill”). They kept up the theatrics that make watching them so much fun: Brian clowned as the perfect foil for Amanda’s slightly straighter-(wo)man (we use that word “straight” very loosely here). They recruited fans from the audience to sing backup on “The Jeep Song”. They paid tribute to their mutual friend Sean, who was in the audience and who brought Brian to Amanda’s Halloween party ten years ago. (The audience sent up cries of “Thank you, Sean!” to him on the balcony.) They received “boo”s when Amanda mentioned wrapping up the show. (“Don’t be idiotic,” she said. “We’re obviously going to do an encore.”)
And they played a five-song encore.
Only then was the audience reluctantly willing to let them go — and only because we know that, this time, it won’t be two years before we see them together again.
