Constant Reader, I have been running hither and yon this week that I can only stop for a few minutes - somewhere someone is being told "Beginners on stage please" and I have to be out front for them. This week I have seen two American lady singers who spookily enough both start with A... and now I think about it, one ain't that much of a lady!

First off the rank was Alela Diane at the Roundhouse... but a Roundhouse with a difference as curtains had been hung around the pillars inside the main auditorium making a more intimate space with tables and chairs in front of the stage surrounded by bleacher seating (where we were). all bathed in atmospheric red light.
The support was The Cave Singers, three odd-ball guys from Seattle with a sort of grunge-zydeco sound - bizarre but easy enough to sit through.
Truth be told I am not the world's biggest Alela Diane fan - Owen is in the running for that award - indeed up until that night I had only heard a few songs on MySpazz.

I can't say that I'm going to be helping Alela's cd sales as I am afraid folk music kinda leaves me unmoved but I can certainly appreciate the clarity of her remarkable voice, the intensity she brings to her song-writing and her charming manner on stage.

Then it was time for the big kahuna... Miss Amanda Palmer at the ICA. This was only about the fifth time I have ever been there, the atmosphere of rarefied ponce can be a bit overwhelming. I was curious to see her again as she would be concentrating on her new solo material which kinda passed me by at Bush Hall last year but they sounded a lot better this time out... She has inhabited the songs more now and sings them with a greater conviction.

All lingerie-d up like some turn of the century tart, she started off miming to a Ben Folds song while doing a Bob Dylan and holding up words on cards which she then buzzed into the audience.

Amanda is showing signs of being a great belter. When she wants to turn up the volume, her voice is still travelling when it hits the back wall but her repertoire also includes introspective numbers which shows her full range.

She included Dresden Dolls classics like COIN-OPERATED BOY and HALF JACK as well as new songs such as the moving AMPERSAND, the glam-rock stomp of LEEDS UNITED and the magnificent STRENGTH THROUGH MUSIC about a high school student getting ready to kill his classmates. We also were treated to I GOOGLE YOU - a new song co-written with Neil Gaiman - in the style of a 1950s Sinatra ballad. Amanda suggested we imagine her as Ella Fitzgerald for that number.

She also started talking about hearing a song in Edinburgh last year which she assumed was an old standard but which she later discovered was written by Dillie Keane then sang a heartfelt cover of LOOK MUMMY NO HANDS - Amanda meets Fascinating Aida!!

We were treated to encores of Leonard Cohen's HALLELUJAH - which as always outstayed it's welcome - and her own special version of CREEP accompanying herself on the ukelele. This time she jumped off the stage and threaded her way through the audience to clamber up on the mixing desk at the back - she'd get where water wouldn't!! She ended the song among the audience, serenading the foolhardy soul who had shouted out he didn't like Radiohead.

It's been great to see Amanda over the last few years growing in maturity as a performer. She totally owns her space on stage and has an excellent rapport with her audience, chatting and responding to them with a ready wit.