Six years ago, I was at Glastonbury Festival. It was life-affirmingly wonderful. On the Sunday night (I think), Bright Eyes were due to play on the John Peel Stage. Ryan Adams had also been due to play, but for some reason this failed to happen. So Bright Eyes took to the stage in front of an audience composed of disgruntled Ryan Adams fans and disgruntled Bright Eyes fans (disgruntled because Conor Oberst, the frontman, appeared to be quite spectacularly intoxicated). I can't say for sure which group of spectators were heckling Conor with cries of "Play Summer of Sixty-Nine!".
Anyway. The set happened, and it appeared to split the crowd. Between songs, Conor was taking what seemed an eternity to compose himself. He also indulged in some mockery of "Make Poverty History" and made some seemingly ill-judged comments about the then-recently-deceased John Peel. There was booing and verbal abuse. But the music itself was unbelievably fucking awesome. The band basically played the whole of their album "Digital Ash in a Digital Urn", which was a synth-laden departure from their usual country-ish sound and to this day ranks as one of my favourite records. When we got back to the campfire that night, there was polarised opinion about whether we had just witnessed the best gig of our lives or the worst. I came out on the side of "best".
The incident that pushed that night toward legendary status, as far as I was concerned, was the appearance of a stark-bollock-naked female running onto the stage near the end of the set and making out with Conor for a prolonged period. I was (/am) a somewhat reserved and naive creature, and it was a revelation to witness something so fucking unashamedly rock 'n' roll.
I have told the story of this gig many times since it happened - it's my default conversation piece when I find myself in the company of a fellow Bright Eyes fan - but I've never been able to capture the magic of that night. Something was missing. And perhaps the thing that was missing is this:
I am a big Amanda Palmer fan. I love her music, I cover her songs, I've seen her live and I regularly check her blog. The other day, said blog contained the following clue (to a mystery I didn't know I was trying to solve):
"god damn the man pens a clever fucking lyric. so sorry conor, i stole it for my blog subject. better than attacking you naked….i suppose i’m all grown up."
That set off some alarm bells. Two minutes' googling later, I was pretty sure that the streaker in my Bright Eyes story was, indeed, Amanda Palmer. It made sense; I remembered seeing that the Dresden Dolls were playing that year, but at the time I didn't know their music so I went to see something else. That decision has always haunted me slightly, due to the fact that the band split by the time I did get into them. The knowledge that I do now at least have a mildly cool Amanda-Palmer-at-Glastonbury story has taken the edge off the regret of not seeing her play there. And this newfound knowledge also has an interesting consequence: it means I have had a unique, naked photo of Amanda Palmer on my hard drive for six years without realising it. I had been inexpertly documenting the festival with a shite film camera and naturally snapped the spectacle on stage that night. But I didn't know it was Amanda Palmer. And now I do.
The photo itself is beyond awful. The camera had no zoom and the lighting was cack and I'm not a photographer. But that's not the point. There are other, far superior pictures of Amanda Palmer in various states of nudity. But this one is mine. I took it. And (to me) it sums up that glorious night better than I ever could in words.
No more ado. Here it is:
And here are the few pixels that matter:
A brief epilogue:
When I found out the truth about this photo, I became very excited and started telling everyone. One of these people was my permanently-connected-to-the-blogosphere(-but-with-more-interesting-things-to-say-than-most) housemate, Sophie (who blogs here). She tweeted my news in the direction of Amanda herself, and got a response indicating that Sophie should "TWEET THAT SHIT". So, as I said at the start, I have been asked (indirectly) by Amanda Palmer to publish a naked photo of her. And now I have.
I have to say, that's an awesome story and I think it works so much better with the fact that you have an awful photo as proof. So much lead up, and then bam! well done, and well written.
ReplyDeleteThanks! Yes, it's not the sort of photo one would fake, is it?
ReplyDelete