More Details
A huge thank you to Jennifer for sending this review to the Dent.
"Tori Amos lets her music do the talking"
by Timothy Finn
The Kansas City Star
Small SW picture with caption:
Tori Amos with Rhett Miller
Reviewed: March 22, Midland Theatre
Attendance: 2,800 (sold out)
Friday was an off-day for the Tori Amos tour, so she spent it in Kansas City with her only child, bowling and racing go-carts. It was therapeutic.
"In a world that's gone crazy and mad," she told a sellout crowd Saturday at the Midland Theatre, "sometimes you just need to come to Kansas City and race go-carts for two hours."
Except for "1,000 Oceans," the hymn that closed her two-hour show, that was her only reference to politics, war or current events. In fact, it was the only piece of conversation she had with her audience the entire night. Instead, she let her piano and keyboards, her voice and her burly rhythm section do all the talking.
Her set list covered nearly two dozen songs, and it included a few B-sides, some material from as far back as her "Little Earthquake," (sic) her first solo album and plenty of tunes from "Scarlet's Walk," her latest record.
This show was like most: The older tunes prompted the loudest cheers, especially "Cornflake Girl" and "Precious Thing" (sic) and "Spring Haze." Her cover of Elton John's "Daniel" got a big response, too. She played that in the middle of the evening, during a solo set when drummer, Matt Chamberlain, and bassist, Jon Evans, took a powder and a sign that read "Roadside Cafe" alighted in the upper right of the stage.
The other highlights, "Mary," "Sugar," and a new one called "Sweet Sangria" and the always pretty "China."
Though just a trio (and some vocal effects tossed in), Amos and her band stirred up plenty of noise. Sometimes too much. On a few songs her voice got lost amid Chamberlain's drums and her own percussive piano playing.
Amos has some of the most loyal and zealous fans in music, yet the crowd this evening was oddly sedate. It cheered wildly at the instrumental intros to the old songs, yelped when she put on lip gloss and whistled at certain lines (the one in "Precious Thing"). (sic)
But nearly everyone downstairs remained seated and somewhat serene all night - until she came back out for the first encore. Then, some people in the front rows actually started dancing.
She ended the show with "1,000 Oceans," a delicate thing about missing someone and wanting dearly to bring them home. Whether it was on her set list from the beginning or she called a late audible, it was an appropriate way to end the night and a crazy, mad week.
