The Dresden Dolls live!
The Dresden Dolls
Vic Theatre, Chicago
Saturday, January 5, 2008
When you describe your music as “Brechtian punk cabaret,” like The Dresden Dolls do, you very well might be relegating yourself to underground, or cult status, for the length of your career. But something weird is happening with The Dolls: More and more people are starting to take notice.
At least that was the picture painted by the hordes of long-faced fans – obviously caught off guard by a sold-out house Saturday evening – desperately trying to score tickets outside the Vic. Undoubtedly, some of the Boston group’s most fanatic followers (especially those prowling Sheffield Avenue asking “Any chance you have an extra ticket?”) are bummed their well-kept secret is starting to be revealed, but put that on pianist/vocalist Amanda Palmer and drummer Brian Viglione. The pair proved they’re beyond well-kept-secret status and stated their case for an even bigger gig next time through town with 100 minutes of punk rock spirit, pop songwriting, and performance-art pizzaz Saturday evening.
Palmer is the first to admit she isn’t a trained pianist or singer, but she knows in punk it’s all delivery, and onstage she’s the demented barker for her band’s twisted carnival side show. She did playful (severed male anatomy on “Sex Changes”); she did creepy (molestation on “Missed Me”); she did macabre (back-alley abortions on “Mandy Goes To Med School”); but no matter the subject, she did them all with the same wicked smile and Entertainment-Or-Death conviction. Her partner, Viglione, is as solid a drummer as you’ll find (he sharpened his skills wood shedding to Metallica and Skid Row) and accentuated Palmer’s quiet moments like “Missed Me” with delicate cymbal taps and punctuated her loud ones like “Half Jack” with octopus-limbed pounding.
Viglione and Palmer seem aware of the possible live shortfalls of a two-piece rock band and planned accordingly by refusing to stay glued all night to their drum and keyboard perches. The couple stood front and center – Viglione with a Les Paul – for “A Night At The Roses,” after which the drummer returned to his stool, this time to play acoustic guitar, while Palmer roamed the crowd (eventually settling in an opera box) for “The Gardner.” Later, during the first song of a two-track encore, Viglione returned to the front of the stage with his Les Paul while Palmer took over his drum set for a cover of the Beastie Boys’ “Fight For Your Right (To Party),” a borderline anarchic affair after the audience was invited onstage. Viglione spent most of the song fighting off zealous fans, and just before the third verse he disappeared completely while trying to reestablish his guitar’s connection, prompting Palmer to kill the beat and ask – only half jokingly – “You O.K. Brian?”
He was. The third verse – “Dresden Dolls” inserted in the line “mom you’re just jealous/it’s the Beastie Boys” – was eventually completed, and Palmer and Viglione concluded the night with a rousing run through “Bad Habit.” This was after, of course, the crowd was ushered back to the theater floor – a process that will surely take longer and longer as their fanbase gets larger and larger.
– Trevor Fisher
Category: Live Reviews, Weekly
