Like, I suppose, many people out there, I’m a huge fan of Amanda Palmer. Her former band, the Dresden Dolls, was great and crazy and wonderful – take a listen to some classics such as Girl Anachronism and Coin Operated Boy, and don’t leave out Slide or Missed Me while you’re at it. When my boyfriend told me a few weeks ago that he’d bought her new album Who Killed Amanda Palmer, I immediately sat down and watched every available music video for it on You Tube.

As luck would have it, every song on the album has a music video – it’s meant to be more of an audio video experience than just a CD. There’s even a book, I found out later.

At any rate, this isn’t meant to be a music review. This is just a build up to explain why I was SO thrilled to find out about a last-minute, donation-only performance by Amanda herself at the All Together Now music conference in Berlin.

It was a small show, just Amanda onstage with a few songs accompanied by a guest musician who lives in Berlin. The “stage” was a small platform only a few inches off the ground, and to give everyone a chance to see the show, Amanda started off by getting the first few rows to sit down on the ground.

I know, it sounds like the beginning of an indie rock concert with soft, gentle, folk melodies. But then Amanda got on the keyboard. And when she gets going on the keyboard, man… she really gets going. I have never before watched someone successfully play keyboard with their elbow, but she managed.

It rocked. The concert rocked. The energy rocked. Oh, and the fact that one of my favorite authors – Neil Gaiman – is her boyfriend, and kindly read us all a short story after the concert… that didn’t hurt either.