amandapalmer

The Spine of Touring. (a Thank You Letter, & First Batch of OZ/NZ Photos).

Added 2026-01-20 07:31:31 +0000 UTC

Hello loves.

Reading comments. (Feel free to talk about the shows that just happened, and if you got photos, the embargo is OVER!! Feel free to post them online or send them to the wide-open chat on the patreon).

I'm collapsed, it's post-tour time.

Real show photos en route and in the system.

All three concerts (Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne) were unprecedented in their path of production and delivery (and we keep hearing this p-work term bandied around, but dudes, it...suits).

Post-tour time sucks, always.

I've come to understand it and to befriend it.

Oh there, you are, disorienting, strangely empty, short of breath, weirdly happy, dry, jet lagged, distrustful of that happy feeling, lonely, exhausted, disbelieving, satisfied, queer, allll heart-hungover fizz-fuzz-ball. It's the comedown down after the high high.

You feel like an emptied-out tube of toothpaste. All shell, ready for the happy trash compactor.

The header photo is of me, Jordan and Michael at Sydney airport, not even 24 hours after the final show in Melbourne.

I'm plagued with that usual feeling of low-level post-tour panic as I face over 2,000 photos (taken by me, Michael, photgraphers, friends, audience members, and crew at the shows), video clips (same)....with emails and texts still to answer and hosts and people and crew to thank and, y'know, explosive feelings after finishing an emotional set of shows and a long stint of travel. The photographer (Lucky) from the final show just got their shots in.

There's so much to sift through....and so much to say.

I think I'll start with something unusual as I settle into the Great After of this Down Under tour.

I've played a lot of "unusual" shows, especially very-last minute ones like these, and I've become nimble as plans constantly shift. My team has learned the exhausting marathon of shifting with me as we chase the golden ring of this Business of Show.

Some artists only plan tours eighteen months in advance. We did that with the There Will Be No Intermission tour. We had venues booked a year out. It pays off. We ultimately played that show to 100,000 people in huge theaters. It was grand. Getting those asses in those chairs took a lot of work. Huzzah.

And then, sometimes, I call Jordan and Michael and say: guess what? we're going to Australia and New Zealand in a month. I can hear the pause, the sigh, the short breath in....

And I launch into thge "NO IT'S GOING TO BE FUN" speech.

The sighs still greet me.

But Michael said something to me in the airport today, and I listened (I'm learning, more, to listen). It is, indeed, chaotic and often boundaryless.

But it is - without a doubt - what makes me, me. And us, us.

The patreon itself reflects this. It's why you're all still here.

Because, if you haven't clocked it by now, I do not always do things the....standard way.

The fact that I actually like to spend the time in my life to sit for a full afternoon (usually) and pore through the tour photos and try to figure out how to write the story behind the tour, the story of the community, the exchange, the many two-way gifts, the art shared and given, the tears and glee that mingle....

The shows are not just shows, they're living, breathing, extensions of the community itself.

But shows take work. They are houses that require architecting.

That's why my team is so important.

Many any of you know Michael, and many of you down under have met Jordan, but I just wanted to take my hat of off, put my heart on my hand, and commend these two fellows for working so incredibly hard, with so much patience, so much dedication, and so much understanding.

Day in and day out, over emails and calls, on the phone, on endless text threads, googling, hunting, chasing, creating to-do lists, ordering merch, changing flight times, delaing with rental cars, renting musical gear, negotiating with venues, chasing down packages, seeing if venues are accessable, grappling with last-minute guest lists, doing errands so that the artists can all eat, fielding press, figuring out ticketing link gaffes....and helping do everything that has to be done to make these shows WORK.

If they do their jobs, everything just seems very calm and normal when you walk into the venue, buy a poster, get a drink, and sit down.

You see the stage, the lights, and the piano and hear the songs, but you do not see an iota of the work, and TIME, that these two guys put into this tour.

And since it's show business, certain things just happen the way they happen...when they happen. Some things can't "wait until next week". It's like being an on-call doctor when it's tour time. Triage, code reds, clean ups on aisle 5, broken gear, you name it.

So I'm here to say: thank you to Jordan Verzar, my and The Dolls' manager of a decade.

Thank you to Michael McComiskey, working for me and the band nearly as long.

And huge thanks are also due to all three venues who hosted us, every person who hosted us in their homes, my European and US agents, my US management at Red Light, my publicists, my lawyers, my financial managers and ALLLLL the hidden pieces of biz-cog who work tirelessly to keep this artist and this band going.

Without all that help, I cannot get on stage, forget about it all, pound piano keys and scream my heart out.

Sometimes it's worth pointing out.

They are the spine of the operation, and that metaphor becomes more and more apt as the structures around us go haywire, and the term "spineless" calls to mind a broken, oozing creature that doesn't have integrity, definition, nimbleness, balance, speed. The spine stays put, it flexes but it doesn't bend too far. It has tight members, stacked and working in concert. It has to support the dancing body, the delirious jazz hands of catharsis.

Or, as Mötorhead put it:

Another bloody customs post
Another fucking foreign coast
Another set of scars to boast
We are the road crew

Where next?

Oh, you'll see. We got plans. :)

And of course, I am nothing, nothing without you, the audience, the patrons, the readers, the digestion system who holds me so beautifully.

I weep as I write.

For real.

Thank you all for showing up.

My gratitude goes deep.