What I've Learned

Amanda Palmer is a songwriter, pianist, uke player, and singer who champions an art form called punk cabaret. She is seemingly unable to keep foul language from popping out of her mouth.

She often uses underwear for outerwear (without benefit of outerwear as underwear), she is loud and overly vivacious. All in all, too crude a person for my taste.

Despite this, I can't help but admire her ability to work an audience.

In 2008, she performed with the Boston Pops Orchestra, singing original songs as well as those by others, such as Brick, by Ben Folds, and What a Wonderful World.

At one point, she began to play Beethoven's Pathetique, banging out thunderous, two-handed chords. After a minute or two of this, the chords melted into the jaunty opening of her song, Coin Operated Boy. The audience went wild with approval.

It was a crazy, raucous, crowd-pleasing evening.

I told you that so I could tell you this.

At the end of 2009, Palmer made another appearance with the Boston Pops. This time, she announced she would play the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1.

It was thought this was a joke. But no. She proved more of a pianist than most people would have guessed. The audience was stunned into silence and admiration as Palmer, backed by the Pops, launched into the long, demanding piece.

She was doing very well, but three minutes into the concerto, the unthinkable happened. Somebody's cell phone went off and they had trouble silencing the ringtone. Palmer tried to ignore the sound, but her concentration was broken and she had to stop playing.

Keith Lockhart, the conductor, halted the orchestra, which glowered at the interruption.

If you think that Amanda Palmer was going to wait for the phone to be silenced, then continue like nothing had happened, you don't know Amanda Palmer. She left the stage, walked out into the audience, looked up at the side balcony and asked, "Whose cell phone was that?"

People in the balcony pointed to a person on the main floor. "The guy in the track suit," someone shouted down.

Palmer made her way to where the man was sitting. She pulled him to his feet and took his cell phone. "Come with me," she said. "I have to embarrass you, okay?"

The hapless fellow followed her onto the stage, the musicians there giving him looks that could kill.

Palmer made the guy sit at the piano.

"This is really hard," she told him, pointing to the keyboard. "And your phone is so annoying."

The man, who looked to be in his early 30s, was totally embarrassed.

But Palmer wasn't about to stop there. She grabbed the man's left hand in hers and bounced his forefinger off the four-note theme of the concerto. She looked at Lockhart on the conductor's platform and indicated that the orchestra should continue.

At first, Lockhart didn't catch what Palmer was asking. When she indicated again that the concerto should continue, Lockhart raised his hands and gave the downbeat. The orchestra picked up the piece where they had left off and as they played, Palmer forced the cell phone man to try to play along, just to show him how hard it really is.

The audience, of course, was loving it, seeing this guy get what he deserved.

Then an amazing thing happened. The man, seeming to have gotten the hang of it, began to actually play the concerto. Palmer put on a fake look of amazement. The audience responded with laughter and applause, realizing they'd been had.

To remove any doubt, Palmer grabbed the collar of the man's track suit and jerked backwards. The break-away suit came free, revealing a tuxedo underneath. Palmer took a swig from a bottle of wine and let the fellow – her friend, Emmy-winning composer Lance Horne – play for a bit, then joined him (as the movement seamlessly jumped ahead to the end) so that they finished the piece four-handed.

It's hard to dislike someone who could pull off a prank like that.