The Dresden Dolls @ Madame Jojo's September 20th 2004

Where to start?

Perhaps with how exicted I was the moment I heard about this gig? No, because that would make me look unspeakably childish.

Perhaps with the amount of persuading it took to get my parents to let me go to London with only a few friends, despite the fact that I'd gone to London to meet friends dozens of times in the past? Oh, but those friends were principally over the legal drinking age and had cars. Hmm. No, because then the fact that I had to weave a complex web of lies involving non-existant people over the age of 18 will come to light.

Ooops.

No, I shall start, as all good stories start, by telling you what I'm about to tell you. Namely: I went to see one of the most personally influential bands I have ever encounterred, live, and t'was FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE.

Let us begin:

I'd never been to Madame Jojo's before, although from what I'd garnered it was a transvesite club in Soho. No worries, I've been to a few of those in my time (Ah, the confusions I have caused in such situations...) and it's not like I'm incapable of reading maps. I'd never been to London without the comforting safety net of a group of friends who, while completely unable to shield my teenage mind from the stark truth of the modern twenty-something Alternative lifestyle in all it's mind-addling, bunny-filled, sexually-confused glory, were quite good at merely protecting me from nasty people whom I didn't want touching my clothes. Well, never let it be said that I was one to shy away from a challenge. I had someone to go with me, after all. I'd go anyway.

But I'd never used the British rail network. Ever. And this was going to be... interesting.

In the end, it went off without a hitch, I arrived where I was supposed to, when I was supposed to (Well, within an hour and a half of when I was supposed to, and I've been told that's not at all bad for Great Western), met up with the people I was supposed to, and we set off.

To cut a long story short, we got there.

And then we qued.

And then we got inside.

And then... we waited.

Most unfortunately, the support had cancelled because of sickness of some kind, and so we waited a long time. I filled in the space with examining my surroundings (Madame Jojo's was quite pleasant, actually, what with the monogrammed carpet and suchlike), the backstage door (Which we were quite close to - Brian and Amanda, AKA The Dresden Dolls, walked past us at least twice, but they looked pretty busy so I didn't accost them) and the other gig-goers (The 'Spot the Crow' game failed miserably on account of there being none, as did the 'Count the Stripy Stockings' game because I got up to four including my own and couldn't find any more). At one point a vaguely scary but also somewhat attractive cybergoth tried to chat me up. That was the highlight of the evening right up until the Dolls came onstage.

They're a self-proclaimed caberet act and I'll hold to that. There's a certain amount of interaction goes on between them and the audience - And I don't just mean "Hey, can someone ask the lighting guy to turn things up a bit? I mean, I'm sure you can see us but we can't see you...". And then there were the odd little bits of humor, par example "This is a song about evil. Well, a very specific kind of evil. But you can't say his name. It's like, the devil or something, you just can't say his name. Um. But it rhymes with Bush."

And then of course, there was the music.

They opened with Good Day, already one of my favourite Dolls songs ever, and that pretty much solidified in my mind a certain scene in a certain screenplay. And trust me, if it gets into one of my films, then it means a lot. An awful lot.

I think all of the first half of the album got in there, - the singles Coin Operated Boy and Girl Anacronism went down a storm. Gravity also made an auditory appearance, and was magnificent. Backstabber, and Sex Changes in the encore, both as yet unreleased, also featured. Truce formed the other half of the encore, and Glass Slipper fitted in there somewhere. And of course there was the borderline gospel and truly outstanding Warpigs, which from what I've been hearing has been recorded and will be on their next album (Fingers crossed). And then, of course, there was Half Jack, possibly the most moving of their songs and the one with the most personal significance to me. I think I nearly cried. Forgive any inaccuracies/obmissions, you have to remember that at the time, I didn't own any of their albums (Damn the postal service), hadn't heard a good half of these songs before, so this is from retrospective memory.

The journey home was another fun episode, but I'll spare you the trauma.

Overall, a fantastic night. The lack of a support band made the waiting game get old real fast, but that was really unavoidable.

Rating: Outstanding. Go and see them if you get a chance. I would go again ANY DAY.