Amanda Palmer '98: Interview and Complete Set

Amanda Palmer '98, of The Dresden Dolls, Evelyn Evelyn, and solo fame, surprised campus with a visit and a "ninja gig" at Eclectic this Friday.

It's been common knowledge among Amanda Palmer fans at Wesleyan that she did not enjoy her time at this school. If you haven't heard it yet,  definitely check out her rendition of "The Wesleyan Fight Song," which (often brutally) satirizes the Wes community. Until now, though, we hadn't learned very much about her actual experiences at Wes.

Being a big fan and alerted by a prompt Wesleying post, I temporarily un-privatized my Twitter account to ask Amanda for a quick video interview, which she kindly obliged. The Argus was also present, so you can also look forward to even more in their interview, in which she talks about college culture shock in an age without cellphones and email, her West Side Story-esque love affair with an Alpha Delt while she was in Eclectic, and more. (Sidenote: someone please make a Wes Side Story video like this. There's definitely potential there.)

For now, here's Amanda on her experiences with music and performance at Wesleyan. Being naked and covered with fake blood is a recurring theme. Interview and set footage after the jump:

Special thanks to Adrien DeFontaine '13, who worked the camera and convinced me to tweet at her.

And here are videos of her entire performance Friday evening at Eclectic, in almost the right order. My video of "Leeds United" was peaking all over the place, so here is another one courtesy of Wesleying's Zach Schonfeld.

Aside from some killer Dresden Dolls and solo originals on the piano, special highlights of the set include an awesome singalong at the end of Amanda's ukelele rendition of "Creep," an extremely dark parody of "Friday," a passionate "Two-Headed Boy," and a shameless uncensored uke cover of "Fuck the Police." Enjoy!

For those of you who missed the show, Amanda is planning to come back to do a big and weird performance piece in the Spring, so you can look forward to that!