This here is the story of a long and fabulous evening in the company of Ms. Amanda Palmer, pianist and songstress of Boston Town, held in the fair city of Dublin this night (or rather last night, for ‘tis morning now) of the 16th of February, 2009. Read on.

I was little worried that I might miss the gig because it was billed to start at 7:30 and my plane was not due to touch down until 6:10. As it turned out, my fears were groundless. Amanda is a proper rock star. Her gigs do not start on time, and she had a support act. As Neil explained to me later, and Amanda elaborated on to the whole audience during the show, it was all the fault of the keyboard. It was fine when it arrived, but it had obviously been at the Guinness over lunch, because by the time Amanda went out to think about rehearsal and sound check it was comatose and not even the promise of a thorough pounding by Amanda’s delicate digits could rouse it from its slumbers. A new keyboard was duly sent for, but by then we were deep into delaysville.

I have to say, however, that the crowd outside the club was magnificently behaved. They were as polite and patient as a bunch of teenaged Finnish anime fans queuing to get into a panel, which is to say there was not a murmur of dissatisfaction. It was all very civilized, but very strict too. Neil had been kind enough to put me on the guest list, but that wasn’t enough to get me into the club before Ms. Amanda was ready. I was rather looking forward to being able to brandish my iPhone at the door guards and say, “Look, here’s a Direct Message from Neil saying you have to let me in”, but once they were ready everything worked like clockwork.

The iPhone. I should talk about that a little. I have discovered that there is a usage meter amongst the software. This allows me to see how much $$$$ (or rather ££££) I am racking up using online data services. It turns out, assuming that the phone is not fibbing, that as long as I stick to just using Twitter then I am probably OK. Indeed, Twitter might even be cheaper than txting. This bodes well for tomorrow, when I hope to live-tweet the reading.

Amanda, being a proper rock star, had a support act. He was nice young man called Rohan followed by something that sounded more Eastern European than Irish and with too many of the wrong consonants for me to be able to spell it correctly. His act, on the other hand, was pure Irish, full of graveside humor and downbeat jokes. If I tell you that he finished his set with a song called “The Undertakers’ Ball” you should get the general idea. And he had, as I said at the time on Twitter, a voice like gravel and glue (a phrase I have stolen and adapted from Mr. Bowie, though most of you are too young to know that).

By this time I had found Neil and been introduced to another of his guests, a Mr. Peter Murphy who is a Dublin journalist and whose debut novel Neil rather likes. There’s a stellar blurb on the back from Roddy Doyle as well, so it sounds like it might do rather well. If he becomes an overnight sensation, remember where you heard the name first.

Amanda was, well, the phrase “fuckin’awesome” seems entirely appropriate. She opened the gig proper with a couple of familiar songs from Who Killed Amanda Palmer, and went on to mix more songs from that album with a variety of old Dresden Dolls numbers and new material. She also sang Neil’s “I Google You”, and told everyone what a wonderful movie Coraline is, which made us mere literary people very happy.

As I said when I talked about the album, the most striking thing about Amanda is the sheer physical intensity of her performances. That’s even more the case live. Peter said at one point that she is fearless, and he’s absolutely right. She is prepared to give anything a go, and mostly it comes off. I said earlier that she started the gig proper with songs from the current album, and so she did. But there was a prologue. She came on stage in a fairly demure antique dress and proceeded to sing one of those traditional British Irish folk songs about having one’s true love die in one’s arms in the middle of a meadow somewhere because some idiot happened to pop up and shoot her by accident, as happens far too often in folk songs for the good of their inhabitants. She sang this without accompaniment, and without amplification.

And when she had finished she ripped off the dress revealing a t-shirt, frilly knickers, stockings and suspenders, and charged straight into “Astronaut”.

Amanda describes her act a “punk cabaret”, which I think is entirely appropriate.

One of the highlights of the evening was the point at which Amanda abandoned the keyboard – and she really is an excellent pianist – and took up her ukulele instead. She’s still learning to play it, but she performed a lovely little song about how her parents are going to sell her childhood home, which is like an old friend to her, and it will probably be bought by an evil yuppie couple with a kid who will put up posters of Miley Cyrus in Amanda’s bedroom. It was just her and the ukulele, but the song was so good that I sat there hearing a full orchestral production in my head, and some electric guitars too. I would love to hear what Ben Folds does with that song.

All good things, of course, must come to an end. But the best things come to a good end. Amanda had made the audience feel very special all evening (helped, I must admit, by the wonderfully intimate atmosphere of the Sugar Club) and there was never any doubt that she would come out for an encore. Oh, but what a treat it was. She walked on stage carrying just the ukulele, and apparently on impulse stepped down into the audience. She then proceeded to walk through the crowd playing “Creep”. The whole audience sang along with her, and when she finished it really did bring the house down. I haven’t been to that many concerts, but that seemed to me to have been very special. Neil, who has been to many more concerts than me, swears that it is something that people will be talking about for years to come. “I was at the Amanda Palmer gig in Dublin.” “Wow, was it really as good as everyone says?” “Listen, let me tell you…”

There was something of an after-show party for the guest list, and I owe a huge debt to the nice Irish gentleman who provided food, because I hadn’t eaten since 1:00pm and it was gone 11:00pm by the time Amanda came off stage. However, Neil had been fighting jet lag all evening and by this point looked as if he’s been on the Guinness all night. Amanda was doing her best to sign autographs for everyone who wanted one, which pretty much appeared to be everyone who was at the gig. So a riotous piece of ligging was not had by all, and the aging members of Ms. Palmer’s entourage headed off to their various hotel rooms to sleep, and of course to check in with the Twittersphere.

Tomorrow will be a brand new day. There will be a reading. I will be there. So will the iPhone. See you then.

Update: Embarrassing cultural faux pas corrected as per comment below.