Thanks, Guys, for the music and witty banter

Artist: The Piano Guys
Venue: The Star Theatre
When: Monday
Attendance: 4,500

It is no secret that YouTube sensation The Piano Guys, the talents behind the rendition of One Direction's What Makes You Beautiful, are virtuosos in their own right.

The ingenious music video, which sees five men use every part of a piano to swing out the cover song, has gone viral, chalking up more than 24 million views since it was put up a year ago.

But beyond their musical prowess, it seems that The Piano Guys, featuring pianist Jon Schmidt and cellist-percussionist Steven Sharp Nelson, also have a flair for comedy.

On Monday night, the band performed their first concert here where they had the audience in stitches from their witty banter between songs.

The set opened with a richly layered cover of Adele's Rolling In The Deep, before moving on to a more upbeat mash-up of Taylor Swift's Love Story and Coldplay's Viva La Vida.

The audience was tickled when Nelson introduced his three cellos onstage - one of which was named Bruce Lee.

Schmidt, refusing to be upstaged, responded by flaunting his ability to play the piano with his foot, head, and even upside-down.

"It would have been better if you'd played it by ear," retorted Nelson, drawing laughter from the audience.

On top of delivering classical-meets-pop favourites like the Faure-ed version of David Guetta's Titanium, the duo performed a gag mash-up - comprising The Phantom Of The Opera soundtrack and Bobby McFerrin's Don't Worry, Be Happy - that Nelson astutely titled, Don't Worry, Be Psycho.

But it was a pity that other songs like Peponi - Coldplay's Paradise in African style - were accompanied by distracting large-screen playbacks of the band's YouTube videos, which took away the magic from a live performance.

Even the delivery of One Direction's What Makes You Beautiful, where the duo were joined by music producer Al Van Der Beek and producer-cum-videographer Paul Anderson, was backed by pre-recorded accompanying tracks.

Still, fans of The Piano Guys were thoroughly wowed by the band's entertaining 2½-hour performance, which culminated in a two-song encore that included a cover of Elvis Presley's Can't Help Falling In Love With You.

tsjwoo@sph.com.sg

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