Amanda Palmer at The British Library

This evening we were lucky enough to be part of a small gathering at The British Library to see a special show by Miss Amanda Palmer. There were only 200 tickets or so, so it was quite special to see her in a small venue and, what's more, in a venue with seats - the first time I've been to an Amanda gig with seats.

She came on in a canary yellow suit, a knee-length dress and matching jacket, handbag and the essential pearls round her neck, bought from a charity shop in Scotland, giving a regal wave. She looked most odd in old/older womens' clothes and commented that they made her feel strange and thought our reaction to her was changed as well. Still, it didn't stop her starting the show with her Australian ukulele by singing a Niggaz With Attitude song that influenced her own song, 'Do You Swear To Tell The Truth'. After a few songs she needed to change clothes and Neil Gaiman helped her unzip the dress to reveal one more to her style underneath.

Most of her songs were with the ukulele even though a piano was on stage with her (which she didn't think was a very good one). We also had two songs which she played with a mandolin (she said she didn't know how to play it). We were given a nice range of her ukulele songs, including 'Map Of Tasmania' (during which she delighted that we were shouting out 'Fuck it' in the chorus in the British Library), the beautiful 'In My Mind', 'Fake Plastic Trees', 'Inbetween Days' (cover of the Cure song) and ''Black Boys On Mopeds' (Sinead O'Connor cover). The penultimate song was a new song that was meant to be a ukulele anthem but had too many words and too many chords but was excellent! During the song, Neil kneeled on the stage with the words on paper for Amanda to read - it's so new she hasn't learned it properly yet.

We were given three songs with Neil Gaiman, 'The Problem With Saints' from the 8in8 project, 'I Google You' (the song he wrote with Amanda three years ago) and the final song of the set, Wreckless Eric's 'Whole Wide World' - I was one of the relatively few people in the audience who could sing along and, I suspect, the only one who's seen Eric sing it live.

Amanda was most excellent, chatting away quite happily, answering questions and being lovely. She was on for about 1:30 hours and then came out afterwards to sign things. As the officious little librarian bloke (who obviously has always dreamed of being a bouncer) kept telling us - don't talk to her, don't take pics with her, everyone move forward, you've got to be out by 9pm, etc. Neil gamely wandered down the queue happy to sign any books that anyone had while I asked Amanda to sign my 'Amanda Palmer Down Under' and 'UkuleHead' CDs and she did. It was a short but sweet meeting, no hugs but at least I had a few words with her and congratulated Neil on a great show as we were leaving.

So. That's two excellent doses of Amanda Fucking Palmer over the weekend and I'm happy. I do, of course, want a new album from Miss Palmer, like, now please. And we need a live DVD please. Oh, and more shows as well (obviously). Thank you for a very special evening.