Best New Years Eve EVER.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
I can't remember the last time I had this much fun on New Years Eve. Amanda Palmer did a show with the Boston Pops tonight. Now, I was excited, but I didn't really know all that much about her. She is a phenomenal live performer. She reads the audience, jokes with everyone, pokes fun at herself, and just generally gets into all kinds of mischief. Example? She got Keith Lockhart (the Pops conductor who never appears in anything but a tux) to wear a Lady Gaga-style metal bra. This was at the end of her cover of Poker Face, which was hilarious--she's got a great voice, and can easily carry the song. Half-way through, right at part where the song usually goes into the "Just like a chick in a casino" verse, Amanda transitioned into a treatise on the feminist implications of Lady Gaga's "poker face" in a post-modern world. And then went back to singing the song.
Because this was the Pops, and there are a lot of people there who go every year to hear some nice classical music on NYE, she played a Tchaikovsky piano concerto. She was kind of nervous about it, but was pretty game. Just as she was getting to the really hard part, someone's cell phone went off in the audience. It just kept ringing and ringing, and so she stopped playing, stopped the orchestra, and went out into the crowd to make the person turn off their phone. Her exact words were, "This is a really hard piece, and frankly your phone going off in the middle is fucking annoying." Everyone started laughing and cheering. As punishment, she made the guy get up on stage and sit at the piano while the orchestra started up again. She was looming over him, and was pushing his fingers to the right keys...and then all of a sudden he started playing it by himself, with a flourish and grace that was phenomenal. Apparently, the whole thing was staged because she had been having such trouble getting it right, and didn't want to have to play the whole piece. It was an incredibly creative and funny way to get the classics in while being able to focus on her own material.
Also, Neil Gaiman was there, and had a chain saw.
He wrote and produced a short film that starred her and Bill Nighy (which premiered in the US at tonight's concert--it's called Statuesque) as well as writing the stories for the book Who Killed Amanda Palmer. Anyway, he was there tonight, and also did a short reading about his wishes for all of us in the new year (don't worry, I'm posting it as soon as I figure out how to get it off my phone). If Neil Gaiman weren't so happy with is wife, I'd want these two to start making babies ASAP.
After the countdown, Amanda led the entire audience in a rendition of Queen's We Are the Champions. She was so engaging that even the 90-year-old couple sitting behind me and my friend were belting it out. I really, really cannot remember the last time I had so much fun.
I'm telling things all out of order because I'm still psyched about how awesome it was tonight. I can't wait to go out an buy her album--her original music is pretty spectacular too.
Anyway, I'll post pics and vids tomorrow when I figure out the technical stuff. Off to bed now.
I can't remember the last time I had this much fun on New Years Eve. Amanda Palmer did a show with the Boston Pops tonight. Now, I was excited, but I didn't really know all that much about her. She is a phenomenal live performer. She reads the audience, jokes with everyone, pokes fun at herself, and just generally gets into all kinds of mischief. Example? She got Keith Lockhart (the Pops conductor who never appears in anything but a tux) to wear a Lady Gaga-style metal bra. This was at the end of her cover of Poker Face, which was hilarious--she's got a great voice, and can easily carry the song. Half-way through, right at part where the song usually goes into the "Just like a chick in a casino" verse, Amanda transitioned into a treatise on the feminist implications of Lady Gaga's "poker face" in a post-modern world. And then went back to singing the song.
Because this was the Pops, and there are a lot of people there who go every year to hear some nice classical music on NYE, she played a Tchaikovsky piano concerto. She was kind of nervous about it, but was pretty game. Just as she was getting to the really hard part, someone's cell phone went off in the audience. It just kept ringing and ringing, and so she stopped playing, stopped the orchestra, and went out into the crowd to make the person turn off their phone. Her exact words were, "This is a really hard piece, and frankly your phone going off in the middle is fucking annoying." Everyone started laughing and cheering. As punishment, she made the guy get up on stage and sit at the piano while the orchestra started up again. She was looming over him, and was pushing his fingers to the right keys...and then all of a sudden he started playing it by himself, with a flourish and grace that was phenomenal. Apparently, the whole thing was staged because she had been having such trouble getting it right, and didn't want to have to play the whole piece. It was an incredibly creative and funny way to get the classics in while being able to focus on her own material.
Also, Neil Gaiman was there, and had a chain saw.
He wrote and produced a short film that starred her and Bill Nighy (which premiered in the US at tonight's concert--it's called Statuesque) as well as writing the stories for the book Who Killed Amanda Palmer. Anyway, he was there tonight, and also did a short reading about his wishes for all of us in the new year (don't worry, I'm posting it as soon as I figure out how to get it off my phone). If Neil Gaiman weren't so happy with is wife, I'd want these two to start making babies ASAP.
After the countdown, Amanda led the entire audience in a rendition of Queen's We Are the Champions. She was so engaging that even the 90-year-old couple sitting behind me and my friend were belting it out. I really, really cannot remember the last time I had so much fun.
I'm telling things all out of order because I'm still psyched about how awesome it was tonight. I can't wait to go out an buy her album--her original music is pretty spectacular too.
Anyway, I'll post pics and vids tomorrow when I figure out the technical stuff. Off to bed now.