American singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer is a firm favourite with Australian audiences and the feeling is mutual. She recorded her masterful 2012 album Theatre is Evil here and she has been in Australia on her current tour since December. Her first show of the tour was at the Woodford Folk Festival in Queensland on December 30, but it really took off on January 16 at MOFO in Launceston.

The tour is in support of long-gestating album There Will Be No Intermission. Palmer has recorded music since Theatre of Evil and been involved in other projects but There Will Be No Intermission is her comeback album, in terms of new music. It’s quite a departure from her previous work, which contained lots of humour and hooks. Her music has always contained a significant confessional element but There Will Be No Intermission dives deeply into Palmer’s personal concerns and traumas.

The There Will Be No Intermission shows are billed as a night of communal emoting led by Palmer. The idea is that Palmer plays tunes on her piano unaccompanied, and in between there is storytelling and audience interaction. Given the nature of There Will Be No Intermission, my thinking before the show was that this could either be the perfect way to air such songs, or it could be an interminable drag.

As the evening wore on and on (the show was easily as long as a T20 cricket match) it became clear that There Will Be No Intermission was born to be played like this. The album is like the recorded version of a particularly harrowing one woman Broadway show (one that is also very funny, to be sure).

Palmer spoke from the heart and the hip about dark places she’s been to and then played songs that were born from or related to them.

The night began with My Favourite Things from the Sound of Music – a song that goes to darkly comic places in her hands. It is also a song that appears on Palmer’s EP Amanda Palmer & Friends Present Fort-Five Degrees: Bushfire Charity Record, released today. Palmer has been writing and recording the EP since her arrival in Australia in December. It is a mix of covers and new compositions and includes guests such her Dresden Dolls bandmate Brian Viglione, Missy Higgins, Claire Bowditch and others. As the title suggests, all the proceeds go to charity – in this case, the Indigenous-led Firesticks Alliance.

Palmer spoke from the heart and the hip about dark places she’s been to and then played songs that were born from or related to them. Mostly these were songs from There Will Be No Intermission, but there were also a couple of old ones and several from her new EP. Early on she told the audience, “If you’re getting too sad, yell, ‘Amanda, I’m getting too sad’ and I’ll play the first few chords of Coin Operated Boy,” a reference to the Dresden Dolls’ breakthrough hit. The audience yelled for mercy a couple of times and eventually Palmer played the song in full to grateful applause.

Bigger on the Inside is one of the songs on There Will Be No Intermission that takes some warming to but after hearing the story of the song’s composition (on the spot in the aftermath of the Boston bombing) before it was played live with gusto, it took on a new lease of life.

This was true of many of the songs from the new album including the ones that hit the spot on first hearing, such as set highlight Drowning in the Sound and Machete. Anybody who is a big fan of Palmer’s knows about her late friend Anthony after whom her son is named. Machete was written when he was dying and the story behind the song is bizarre, deeply moving and hilarious all at once. It turns out that as well as being a believer in ‘radical compassion’ and a vegan, Anthony was also a weapons nut with a collection of guns, knives and apparently a machete.

As the evening wore on and on (the show was easily as long as a T20 cricket match) it became clear that There Will Be No Intermission was born to be played like this.

Abortion was an ongoing theme of the evening and Palmer told the stories of her abortions in frank detail, some of which laid bare the abomination that is the American healthcare system. She delivered more than one song on the subject, including newie Voicemail for Jill.

The new EP includes two Midnight Oil covers and her version of Beds are Burning brought the house down especially when the audience was invited to sing along. A new composition Suck it Up, Buttercup, written while Palmer was at MOFO in Launceston in January also went down a treat.

Towards the end of a special, if exhausting, evening Palmer confirmed what she has hinted at on Twitter, namely that she and Viglione are working on new Dresden Dolls material. Her exact words were, “All those suffering with Dresden Dolls blue balls for the last 15 years don’t have to wait much longer for relief”.

Doubtless, many people who see Palmer on her current tour will find it hard going but I’m sure most fans will find it deeply rewarding on many levels. It showcases all Palmer’s talents as a songwriter, performer and storyteller.

Amanda Palmer played Sydney’s Enmore Theatre on Thursday, February 20.