Last night I made my first visit to the Electric Ballroom since 2001 - no wonder I was surprised it was bigger than I remembered. I saw Amanda Palmer for the fourth time in a solo show (seventh if you count her appearances as The Dresden Dolls with Brian).

Amanda has had an odd year. She released her first solo album on a suitably indie label which was well-received but, through her blogs, we have followed problems that have arisen. Because of a legal problem she has been out-of-pocket since the album's release and she has been frustrated by the record company's intransigence at promoting her, going so far as to say that she was too fat in one of her videos and asking her to reshoot it - and now she has more tsouris as her video for upcoming single OASIS has been banned by channels such as NME TV, Kerrang, MTV, Q and The Box - and why? The reason? "making light of rape, religion and abortion'".
The song - almost theatrically poppy, Brill Buildingesque - is sung by a girl who gets raped at a party and then gets hassle from fundamentalist Christians picketing the abortion clinic - but all she's interested in is that she's not only got tickets to see Blur but Oasis sent her a signed picture! What is absurd about this censoring is that it's from companies who are no doubt happy to screen gangsta rap videos in their "urban" programming which glorify gang violence or the 'dance' videos that objectify women as tits 'n' arse. The ultimate hilaire is that the track has been played on the BBC. Yes. The BBC.

Needless to say Amanda addressed this in the gig, making the valid point that if she had recorded it as an introspective brooding ballad - eg. playing the victim card - then no one would have blinked an eye. As she said "When you cannot joke about the darkness of life, that's when the darkness takes over". She then preceded to play the song as the dirge... then laughed and launched into a great clap-a-long, singalong version!
It was good to see her again although the show seemed a bit all over the place - the auction of a painting of Amanda to raise money for her supporting troupe The Danger Ensemble - they tour with her without pay - really should have been at the start of the encores rather than slap-bang in the middle of the show killing the momentum. Mind you, it was bought for £400 so way to go to the generous punter!

I've said it before but I don't know any other artist who has such a close connection with her fanbase than Amanda - and it's a genuinely mutual connection not one of these record company offices that sends out the odd e-mail. The show culminated with two gay guys being invited up on stage as one wanted to spring a proposal to the other to roars of approval and one of the Danger Ensemble appearing as a prissy Kate Perry miming to *that* song before being jumped and forcibly attacked by a ravenously horny Amanda. Afterwards we hung around the merch counter wondering should we stay and get her to sign the pictures of us of her at Bush Hall when a security guard appeared, guiding Amanda to a table behind us - so we were first in the queue - Yayee! Thanks to Flckr contributors for the photos by the way.

Here's the OASIS video - as Patti Smith growled at the Roundhouse in 2007 "You're not afraid of a fuckin' pop song are you?"