Show Review: The Dresden Dolls with Pomplamoose at The Warfield, 12/31/2010

Forget what you thought you knew about how to celebrate for the beginning of a new year. Forget what you thought could happen with two Bostonians, a collective of YouTube musicians, a pile of balloons, two cannons of confetti, and two thousand lovers of punk cabaret. If you were not one of the aforementioned fans that filled San Francisco’s Warfield Theater to nigh-overflowing to see the triumphant Bay Area return of the Dresden Dolls, you missed one of the greatest shows in the band’s career, and one of the best shows of 2010, and, quite likely, 2011 as well.

The evening kicked off with a glorious and well-received performance from Pomplamoose, a collective of Bay Area musicians held together by the core duo of Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte, whose music is a gorgeous combination of original pieces and covers performed in a six-piece capacity. A great deal of the crowd seemed to be thrown off at first by the band’s arrangements, which were bright, pleasant, and delicately balanced between Dawn’s stoic, steady playing and Conte’s wild, overjoyed thrashing. However, the arrival to the set of several covers, including “Single Ladies”, “La Vie En Rose”, and “September” put the audience back in a much more festive mood, with quite a few of them mirroring the energy level of Conte by the end of the set. Many a sad cry went up when the band announced the end of their set, but it was clear that there would be more to come from Pomplamoose before the night was finished.

Less than an hour after Pomplamoose had departed from the stage, the crowd roared its approval over the arrival of the first special guest of the evening: Seattle musician Jason Webley, a master of the accordion and a close friend of the Dresden Dolls. Armed with his signature squeezebox, he worked to get the crowd in the most appropriate mood for the night: one of celebration, shouting, and the desire to be filled with alcohol. Performing a drinking song of his own design, with the inspiring lyric “If God wanted us sober, he’d knock the glass over // So while it is full, we drink up!”, and got the crowd to spin in circles 11 times before the penultimate repetition of the chorus. The final notes of the song were lost, however, to maniacal screaming, as the Dresden Dolls — the duo of Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione — suddenly flew onto the stage, hurling flowers into the crowd and bowling Webley over with a massive embrace.

The first song of the night, a slow and haunting cover of “Cosmic Dancer” with Viglione on acoustic guitar, was immediately followed with thunderous performances of “Good Day” and “Sex Changes”. To describe the majority of the set as “regular” Dresden Dolls song is rather unfair, as each number of the set was accompanied with its own set of surprises, stories, and other antics from the duo, who seemed to be marvelously happy with being back in the city of San Francisco. “Mandy Goes To Med School” saw an extra five minutes’ worth of improvisation and solos from both Palmer and Viglione, while “Astronaut”, one of Palmer’s solo pieces, was accompanied with the intro to “Half Jack”, which was also performed in full near the end of the night. “Delilah” saw the Dolls being joined by singer Whitney Moses, who provided the voice of the eponymous character, and was the second of many more guests to join the pair onstage.

In addition to the Dolls’ songs being incredibly electrifying to watch, some of the true magic of the night came from their infamous cover performances. In addition to the staple of Carole King’s “Pierre”, Palmer paid tribute to composer Kurt Weill in a magnificent performance of “Die Seeräuber Jenny” from The Three-Penny Opera, and the pair came out from behind their instruments to lay down some beats in an a capella performance of “I Am The Condor”, a hip-hop number that saw them joined by Bay Area native Zoe Boekbinder, who was soon pinned to the stage under Palmer as she threw herself about. Boekbinder was the last “new” guest to appear onstage before the new year; following the darkly beautiful “Boston” and the mayhem-filled “Bad Habit”, the Dolls were joined by Boekbinder, Webley, Moses, and the members of Pomplamoose, as the entire lot of the musicians counted from 11 seconds down to the exact moment of midnight.

The new year was broken in with an explosion of confetti and balloons while the Dolls performed U2’s “New Year’s Day”, after which Palmer took over the drumkit, taking a backseat to Viglione’s electric guitar and the entire auditorium bellowing out a performance of “(You’ve Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)”. The entire stage was covered in a flood of balloons, confetti and humanity, with musicians colliding like pinballs and liquor being passed about among them. After such an incredible bombshell of celebration, it was a great effort to drift down in energy with the core pair being abandoned for their performance of “Gravity”; thankfully, this was followed with the perfect closing number for the set, “Coin-Operated Boy”, with the eager crowd sometimes singing ahead of Palmer, who responded with joyous laughter at each instance.

Those who thought that the Dolls’ first departure from the stage seemed to indicate that the night was almost over turned out to be sorely mistaken, much to the delight of those willing to stay until the hour of one in the morning. The first encore began with Palmer telling the story of the Dolls’ last visit to the Warfield, where they had opened for Nine Inch Nails and had seen an enthusiastic Trent Reznor chew out a heckler during their performance; in honor of Reznor’s support, the pair performed a positively chilling cover of “Hurt”, and closed their first encore with the long-awaited return performance of “Half Jack” that had been a teaser earlier in the night. When Viglione marched back onto the stage a few minutes after the song finished, however, the crowd’s attention was thrown up to the balcony, as Palmer began running through the crowd and writhing about furiously on the edge of the upper railing for a salacious and fiery performance of “Mein Herr” from Cabaret. Palmer eventually worked her way downstairs and crowdsurfed back to the stage, and the pair closed out their New Year’s show with a thunderstruck cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” before finally departing for good.

As a tremendous fan of Amanda Palmer and the Dresden Dolls, I could be a bit biased in offering my opinion at this point. However, as a regular attendee of concerts of all degrees, and one with high expectations for New Year’s shows, it will hopefully mean a lot to say that this was one of the most magnificent shows I have ever seen. The explosive camaraderie shared throughout the theater fed wonderfully off of the positive energy and tremendous love from the cabaret punk duo, and the astonishing array of guests led one to wonder what surprises would come with every single song of the night. Palmer herself stated that it was, most likely, one of the best shows of the Dolls’ career, and this reviewer can agree with her wholeheartedly. As ways of ringing in the new year go, this was easily the best; let us hope that the rest of 2011 can be just as incredible.

Setlist:

1. Cosmic Dancer (T. Rex cover)
2. Good Day
3. Sex Changes
4. Missed Me
5. Astronaut: A Short History of Nearly Nothing
6. Mrs. O
7. Die Seeräuber Jenny (The Three-Penny Opera)
8. Delilah (with Whitney Moses)
9. I Am The Condor (Double Dong cover with Zoe Boekbinder)
10. Pierre (Carole King cover)
11. Mandy Goes To Med School
12. Boston
13. Bad Habit
14. New Years’ Day (U2 cover)
15. (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party) (Beastie Boys cover with Jason Webley, Zoe Boekbinder, Whitney Moses, and Pomplamoose)
16. Gravity
17. Coin-Operated Boy

Encore 1:

1. Help Me I Am In Hell (Nine Inch Nails cover)
2. Hurt (Nine Inch Nails cover)
3. Half Jack

Encore 2:

1. Mein Herr (Cabaret)
2. War Pigs (Black Sabbath cover)