Kevin Bronson on April 19th, 2009

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I remember Amanda Palmer telling me in the early days of the Dresden Dolls that she had a music teacher who didn’t think she was very good. Wonder what that mentor would have thought of her set Saturday in the Gobi Tent at Coachella.

The painted songstress/performance artist turned in one of the most memorable sets in recent memory. She took the stage to a recording of the theme song from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” with friends introducing her with body-painted letters that spelled “Amanda ****ing Palmer.” She ripped off her silvery cape at the crescendo of the song and unleashed a wildly entertaining set her alternately ribald and heart-rending cabaret pop, mixing Dolls material with songs off her recent solo effort “Who Killed Amanda Palmer?”

The tent couldn’t have been more packed if human bodies were ivories on a keyboard, and Palmer’s strong bond with her fans was evident throughout. She detoured to comment on matters like Friday’s lineup, including the contrast between marquee names Leonard Cohen and Morrissey – “Leonard Cohen was so humble, and Morrissey was like ‘IIIIIIIIIIIII.'” Her body and head bounced with her lively piano lines; she paused to swig wine from a bottle between songs; she grabbed a ukelele and prodded the crowd to sing along in a cover of Radiohead’s “Creep.” Her big entrance ended up being no match for her unusual exit – she crowd-surfed from the stage to the back of the tent, then, escorted by members of the Lucent Dossier troupe, galloped over to the Do Lab for a meet-and-greet.

For pure entertainment value, M.I.A. might have been great later on the main stage, but Amanda Palmer did more with less.