Boston's The Dresden Dolls (a duo made up of pianist/vocalist Amanda Palmer and guitar player/drummer/vocalist Brian Viglione) have been bringing their unique brand of punk-inspired cabaret music to the masses since 2001. Infamous for their over the top sense of the theatrical, the band incorporate strange make-up and costumes into their act which makes it very much performance art as much as it is simply music. Think of it as a very dark musical circus and you're on the right track...

The Dresden Dolls - Live At The Roundhouse, London is a slickly produced and nicely shot document of the two nights that the band played in the newly reconstructed and restored venue on November 3rd and 4th of 2006. What makes this more than just a simple concert recording is the fact that the band is somewhat famous for encouraging their audience to become part of the act. This has lead to all manner of strange things occurring at their shows where it's not uncommon to see other cabaret/circus performers doing their thing on or around the stage. Fire-breathers, stilt walkers, and jugglers all show up and bet into the act and perform along to the music and it makes for a visually impressive and wholly unique experience.

This concert finds Viglione and Palmer in fine form, however. Alongside Margaret Cho who appears here as a ringleader/master of ceremonies character, the pair bang out the best of their catalogue with passion, enthusiasm and an all too uncommon sense of pathos that really carries some serious impact. Dramatic, moving and intense the music obviously comes first and foremost but the visual aspect of the performance from both the band and the other participants has to be rightfully acknowledged as it really is a huge part of the experience.

The complete track listing for the concert contained on this DVD is as follows:

Sex Changes
Gravity
Modern Moonlight
Mrs. O
Backstabber
Coin-Operated Boy
Two-Headed Boy
Mandy Goes To Med School
Lonesome Organist Rapes Page Turner
Slide
The Jeep Song
Dirty Business
Shores Of California
Sing
Mein Herr
Mad World
Girl Anachronism

Playing through most of their more popular songs and throwing a smattering of obscurities into the mix for fun, the two hour concert never drags thanks to the unique combination of surreal performance art and emotive, often angry music. The opening number, Sex Changes, starts off with a nice pounding on the keyboard and the drums at the same time and it gets almost primal as it progresses. From there they bounce around from slower tracks to heavier, more aggressive numbers. The crowd gets into it from the get go, singing along and obviously enjoying all aspects of the performance. Viglione and Palmer play off of one another extremely well, almost seeming to feed each other's intensity and it builds as the concert progresses and it finishes, appropriately enough with Girl Anachronism, with quite a crescendo.

Video:

The Dresden Dolls - Live At The Roundhouse, London is presented in a nice 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Though there is some obvious mpeg compression in the darker scenes and the stage lighting does wash things out just a bit in a couple of spots, overall color reproduction is quite nice and there's a solid level of both foreground and background detail present in the picture.