Dan Hardy played two sets at Joco’s in front of a crowd of a dozen regulars. Since Hardy plays the area circuit, I’m not sure if tonight constituted an average crowd. With an acoustic guitar and a voice higher than you might guess, he covered a range of songs from Goo Goo Dolls’ Slide to a pair of Tom Petty covers American Girl and Mary Jane’s Last Dance.

His best was a deconstructed version of Wonderwall. His mash up of Message in a Bottle/Crash into Me started to steer a little too John Mayer for my tastes. Better was a mellow version of the hipster go to song Take Me Home, Country Roads. His one attempt at banter, about snapping a “G string” fell flat but Hardy had the crowd singing along the entire night which to my mind meant mission accomplished.

This band’s name has rung in my ears for years. I’m not sure why. I think I tried to see them at a SXSW with no luck – and then I went to a bar in San Diego where their posters were plastered and imagined I’d found their home turf. Turns out, they’re from Atlanta. Anyway, I had very positive expectations, but the band totally exceeded them. This was my show of the year. It was some mix of the sound and the weird female power on stage that took me back to being a high school girl who hated the world and loved female power. Their sound is a mix of The Fall, Babes in Toyland, Daisy Chainsaw, and the Slits. They do the quiet loud trick of modern music, and there was also a nod to Japanese nuttiness. They are post-punk, perfectly done. More importantly, these girls are raw – they weren’t scared to be crazy and freaky, and we were all drawn into their every emotion. Then they did a Gun Club cover, and we/I about capultzed. I have a crush on the entire band, for being weird and hard but still unpretentious, for switching instruments. I love this band. Rockboy, being a male, wasn’t as transformed as me, and summed them up as having the attitude, energy, and excitement of 70s punk bands who lacked real instrumental talent. I kicked his ass and told him he was sexist.

[Milwaukee, WI] This band was a great mix of Hunx and his Punks (sleazy gay 60s do-wop) and the Shins (glorious chamber pop). They’re on the Subpop label – nothing wrong with that. They varied from psychy to upbeat. Rockboy really liked them.

If three days of back-to-back performances was taking its toll on Amanda Palmer and company, it was hard to tell. From the extended introduction to Do It With a Rockstar, with Palmer barreling through the audience with a megaphone, to the crowd singalong of Massachusetts Avenue, the new tracks came alive tonight. In particular, The Killing Type packed a wicked punch and is my hands down favorite from the live performances.

The sound was better than on Tuesday night and you could hear the difference especially in the two songs supported the string quartet Trout Heart Replica and The Bed Song. The strings vibrated throughout the room and it brought the emotional force of the compositions to full tilt. There was a moment during Astronaut where the melody is carried just on the weight of Chad Raines’ guitar and it carried crisply out to the audience and completely blew me away.

Though the setlist was similar to Tuesday night’s performance, when it veered off, it went in great directions. Hearing a live version of Idioteque (one of a few Radiohead songs covered by Amanda Palmer) was completely amazing, even if the song was more frenetic than even the studio version. The band pulled out a cover of The Motel’s Total Control that slipped easily in their set and bracketed by a conversation about the band performing with the Muppets. During Bottomfeeder, Palmer tossed herself into the crowd and surfed while singing the chorus.

You can tell the band is having a good time with one another. The chemistry shines through (Raines headbutting bassist Jherek Bischoff and standing on Michael McQuilken’s drumkit and McQuilken’s dead on impersonation of Elmo. Palmer’s take on Janice was pretty funny too). They closed the show by bringing everyone onstage for a jam of Leeds United and, as if not to be outdone, Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra took one last song to the house, a Dresden Dolls classic Girl Anachronism that left the crowd winded and ecstatic.

Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra setlist
Do It With a Rockstar
Missed Me
The Killing Type
Astronaut
Trout Heart Replica
The Bed Song
Idioteque
Lost
How Awesome is My Band/Scene Change Music
Total Control
Bottomfeeder
Want It Back
Massachusetts Avenue
Berlin
Olly Olly Oxen Free
Encore
Leeds United (with Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys and Jaggery)
Girl Anachronism

I’m not sure I can adequately describe how much I loved watching Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys perform. The music hints at some kind darkly lit industrial folk tale ala the real Brothers Grimm’ The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids where the wolf eats all but one. But their songs are backlit with a perverse joy and it comes out sparkling and LOUD during their live performance. You have band members weaving through the audience playing their instruments. You have funky costumes – some ironic, some wayward – and as a band, they wander the stage like a traveling circus. Through it all, Walter Sickert anchors the performance pounding out strong melodies and baying these fierce, fuming lyrics and damn if it doesn’t come off as revelry.

The songs during the thirty-minute set were taken from SteamShipKillers released in 2010. Although Sea Song was their ode to love and opposition to hatred and bigotry, it was Feathers, (with the gorgeous vocals of Jaggery’s Mali Sastri) that really struck home to me. It was a haunting and visceral performance. They closed the set with a fantastic call and answer Off With Her Head. Half the audience shouts “Off” and the other half shouts “Head” and behind the cacophony, the band plays on. Utterly brilliant. Utterly captivating.

Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys setlist
No Room
A Friend in Goddamn
Sea Song/Love and Marriage
Feathers (with Mali Sastri)
Off With Her Head

Tristan Allen performed a single solo piano piece in between sets from Jaggery and Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys. He was jumpier tonight than on Tuesday and the music was choppier but when he hit his stride about halfway through, none of that mattered. He has the ability to create sounds from a single keyboard as if they are coming at you from every direction and it’s fire.

Jaggery, only a trio for tonight’s performance, is fronted by the exquisite vocalist Mali Sastri. Their sound flirts with a lot of musical styles, but there’s an attractive cohesiveness to their music. Sastri is a wailer and her control is phenomenal. A stripped down version of Jaggery, featuring Rachel Jayson on viola and Tony Lava on…well everything, still pulled off an impressive soundscape. The songs are part lullaby, part siren’s call. It really paid to stand back and let the sound wash you clean. Nate Greenslit from Bury Me Standing kept a beat with handclaps on the last song.