Tori Amos at The Garden
The Enigmatic Singer hits New York for Two Dates on her Latest Tour
Dec 22, 2008
It is hard to believe it has now been over seventeen years since her breakout album, Little Earthquakes, in the autumn of 1991. While Amos has never achieved the mainstream recognition and coverage her rich and enigmatic music most certainly deserves, she has long enjoyed a large and dedicated following that borders almost on the fanatical.
The lights go down and her long standing backing band of Matt Chamberlain (drums), Jon Evans (bass), and Dan Phelps (guitar), take their positions. The place erupts when the lady herself appears and adopts her trademark straddle on the piano stool. Songs as characters in a story have long been apart of her approach to albums and tours, and Tori is unsurprisingly in costume in a black wig and yellow dress as she begins to play.
A couple of classics aside, the latest album unsurprisingly dominates the first set Opening with the jazzy and somber “Cruel” sets the crowd a shiver, before she launches them all into sway with the energetic and powerful “Bliss.” The energy now in the room continues to build as we get a soft and gentle rendition of “Fat Slut,” leading into the dark and mysterious “Smokey Joe.” A change of pace comes next for the punchy rock song “Teenage Hustling.” Tori ends the set as she began it, with another classic oldie, Under The Pink's absurdly allegorical “Waitress.”
Shifting personas is a theme of the American Doll Posse tour
As Tori scurries backstage we are entertained with a remix of nineties dance club hit “Professional Widow,” before she reemerges, now a redhead in a purple sequined evening dress. The energy picks back up with the bouncy “Big Wheel,” and then the entire auditorium is brought to silence with the song that first scored her acclaim, the simply beautiful “Crucify.” Then the crowd gets down and dirty with “Pancake” and the ever popular “Cornflake Girl.”
Amos shows are always charged with a striking blend of spirituality and unabashed sexuality. Here she continues to acoustically bring us to our knees grinding the piano stool, eyes closed, playing two pianos at the same time, as she launches into the dark and dreamy “Bells for Her,” which leads into the urgent and powerful “Siren,” to close out the second set.
A final costume change sees Tori return as a blonde, for the part of the show everyone had been waiting for. The band takes a deserved break and the mouth-watering sight of this exceptionally talented artist alone with nothing but a piano and her haunting, soaring voice occupies the stage.
It is at this point that she speaks to the crowd for the first time, thanking her legion of fans for coming out on this rainy Thursday night. Never one for predictability, Tori then teases the crowd with an improvised number about throwing her shoes at a women who then sold them on Ebay.
Solo set is a real treat for fans of early Tori albums
The next fifteen minutes last a lifetime as Tori gives us a lingering rendition of “Silent All these Years.” Then a welcome surprise; a live remix of the excellent “Cool on Your Island,” a little known single from her first album in the 80's when she was briefly a Kate Bush-esque glam singer. She finishes her all too brief solo set with the gentle and drifting “Cooling.”
The band returns for a final set of “Digital Ghost”, the techno laced “Hotel” and the highly experimental “Code Red.” Then it's time for the crowd pleasers during a two encore finale featuring the spine tingling “Precious Things,” new favorite “Bouncing off Clouds” and the icing on the cake that is “Hey Jupiter.”
The sheer value of a virtually uninterrupted two hours plus show somewhat offsets the criminally overprices tour merchandise, but tonight was all about the music. Tori Amos with a piano is still after more than two decades one of the finest singer/songwriters in the world. Chillingly haunting and enigmatic music combined with poetic lyrics of hope, melancholy and deep introspection that is simply euphoric to hear. American Doll Posse is available now through Epic Records
