On Tuesday evening, December 2, 2003 beginning at 7:30PM, Tori performed live at Tower Records' Brea store (220 South Brea Boulevard in Brea, CA). This open to the public 30-minute live set was also a special 'Star Lounge' session for Los Angeles/Orange County radio station Star 98.7 FM. Tori's performance was preceeded by a private autograph signing for 60 contest winners. (The signing was BEFORE the performance!) I have more details of the event and accounts from Toriphiles who were there, a couple of photos from the performance at Tower and a transcript of what Tori said.

More Details

Here are the songs Tori played during the Brea, CA Tower performance (Thanks to Matt Page who first called me with the set list):

Silent All These Years
Take To The Sky (With 'I Feel The Earth Move Under My Feet')
Winter
Angels
Seaside

Transcript

This was transcribed by Jason and can also be found at yessaid.com

Tori performs Silent All These Years

Hi everybody, how's it going?

A guy in the audience yells: I love you, Tori!

And um, love you back. And hey there to all those people in traffic. I kinda hope you're still in traffic, just so I can say hey. This little song never made any of the records, and im, and it didn't make Tales of a Librarian, so of course that's why I'm doing it. So here we go.

Tori performs Take to the Sky

This song, this litte song is um, it's funny because when I wrote it I thought of my grandfather - Poppa - and my dad. And now that I'm a mom, the pictures change. And I see my little girl walking hand in hand with her dad. And it's funny... Give Tash-Tash cookie.

Tori performs Winter

So um, this little song is something that um, after touring the country for all of last year. It seems like forever, but um...

A guy in the audience yells: And we miss you!

And I miss you back. Um, this song kinda came to me just sort of as um, of a chronicling of this time that we're in. And um, she came and tapped me on the shoulder. And she's on Tales.

Tori performs Angels

So I got a letter, um, awhile ago. It was a couple years ago. And I got it backstage, and it was from a 13-year-old girl. And she said, "In all the bombings I lost my best friend." And she was 13, too. And this came from the Middle East. And I carry that letter around. And this little song came, and she was gonna be on Scarlet's Walk, but she's here tonight instead.

Tori performs Seaside

Goodnight, everybody. Thanks for coming.

Photos and Commentary

From danny haloossim:

here's a picture from the instore... we weren't allowed to use flash, so most of my pictures didn't come out well and the lighting inside wasn't that great either.




From Suzanne Karpinski:

Got some pics last night in Brea, this one was one of the only ones to come out great with no flash (or they would have had my head). ;)




From DevotedSatellite333:

This is my third time writing to The Dent, which by the way, is the most awesome site! Thanks so much for all your hard work and dedication. Anyway, I was able to make Tori's appearance at the Tower Records at Brea yesterday. I didn't get to go the signing as I wasn't a contest winner, a couple of my friends did however did get to the signing. And I just wanted to make a correction...or let you know......ummm. Well on your main page, you say that Tori's performance wasfollowed by the signing, when it was actually the other way around...

Basically people showed up as early as they could. My friends and I arrived at 9:30am, at which point people were already lined up around the store. As soon as we lined up we were greeted with a Tower Records employee who had a numbered list of people in line. We signed our names. At about Noon the Events Coordinator for Tower told everyone in line that they (the staff) would be giving out wrist bands at around 1pm in order of those in line first. So the wristbands (a picture of which I'm attatching to this e-mail)were given out at around 1pm. I was number "36096"...which was "...96". The coordinator then informed us that we could leave, do whatever we needed to do until about 6:30pm, at which time we were to report back in line according to thenumbers on the wristbands. While I've been to a few Tori shows, this was the first time I actually attended a "Meet" of sorts, and I have to say how surprised I was at how well organized everything was, the staff were courteous, the fans were well-behaved...everything was executed perfectly. Getting back to my point. At around 6pm my friends got back in line...and it was around that time that the signing was going on. The contest winners were lined up on the other side of the Tower building, my friends who got in said that Tori took quite a while with each person (2 - 5 minutes each). After the signing was over, which took over an hour, they contest winners were escorted out of the building...in a separate line from the "general" fans...after some time they were escorted back in, and were given optimal viewing positions...right in front of Tori's baby Bosey. After the Contest Winners were seated...the "General" crowd was let in at around 7:30pm I believe (sorry, I didn't have a watch on me)...the General crowd was asked to stand, so as to allow more people to come in. The Contest winners were seated Indian style. It was a bit hectic, since many of the "general" audience couldn't see Tori. Unless you strained your calves by raising yourself a few inches, which I had to do, even still it was a great experience.


From Danny:

Tori sang 5 songs for a crowd of about 300 people. About 60 contest winners got to meet Tori before the show. The rest of use had to wait. As always, Tori looked beautiful, she was in good spirits, often making funny faces during her songs and chatting with her audience, The set list was Silent All These Years, Take To the Sky, Winter, Angels and Seaside. The show was also broacast live on Star 98.7 and lasted about 30 minutes. It was awesome!


From Sarah Wheeler:

Yesterday I went to Tori's signing/performance in Brea.

So I got out of school at 11, picked up my friends, got there at about noon, stood in line for a while, and got wristbands at about 12:30-ish. For the rest of the day we wandered around downtown and the nearby mall.

Then we went back to Tower Records at about 4:45 (I think) and got in line. They actually made us get in line according to the numbers on our wristbands, which was weird and annoying since the stupid cop checked everyone's three frickin' times. We sat on the sidewalk until about 8 o'clock, freezing our asses off and cursing Tower Records. We made up our own version of "Cruel" targeting the mean Tower staff that made us wait in the cold.

Then they finally let us in (I was #207). We crowded into a small area around a little stage with the Bose on it. It was right at our level, which was neat. It made it feel like Tori was playing in a living room, it was so intimate. But it was a weird place to set it up; I know that many people's views were blocked by either columns or speakers. The contest winners, though, got to sit up front.

The STAR 98.7 DJ did a little MC thing, and then we waited for Tori. Ten minutes later she came down the staircase to the 2nd Tower floor, and gave us a little wave. She's so tiny! She walked over to the piano and played "Silent All These Years"; I've seen three concerts, and it was the first time I've ever heard it, and it was beautiful. Then she played "Take to the Sky" w/ the "I Feel The Earth Move", and it was really cool; it had everybody clapping and moving. Afterwards she spit on the floor, which only Tori could do gracefully.

Then she played "Winter", and I cried. It was absolutely beautiful. Before she played it she said that it used to make her think of her father and grandfather, but now when she plays it she sees her husband and daughter (Tash-Tash cookie, as she called her). Then she played "Angels", and talked about how she wrote it while she was touring last year. I like it a lot more now that I've heard live. Finally, she ended with a gorgeous "Seaside". She said that she wrote it about a letter from a 13 year old girl that she carries around with her. She said that the girl had lost her best friend, another young girl, in the Iraqi bombings. It was so sad and sweet.

I was standing on the far left side, and could see her pretty well most of the time. Occasionally a bodyguard would stand in my way, but for the most part I was in a good place.

When she got up to leave, she walked right by me. I had a little demo I wanted to give to her (and a note explaining that I wasn't trying to solicate her, but wanted to let her know just how much she'd inspired me). There was a whole entourage of cops and bodyguards (Joel wasn't there) and assistants and her tour manager, but I tried to reach out and give it to her anyways. She saw me reaching, stopped, took a step back, gave me a smile and took it from me.

I was in heaven. I mean, she actually made an effort to take it! And they were hauling her out of there fast, too. It was so so cool and sweet and nice. If anyone ever tries to tell you that Tori is rude and unappreciative of her fans, they are full of crap. So then we went home, and I played "Happy Phantom" in the car. All in all, it was awesome.



From Brian Tanaka:

I drove down to Brea in Orange County for the in-store appearance at Tower Records.

As far as the lining up process was concerned, there were some deviations from the announced plan. First, despite the warnings not to line up before noon, people were allowed to line up at 5:00 AM. Second, though 500 people were expected to be allowed in, on the day of the event the Brea fire marshall reduced that number to 300.

On the up side, I felt that the Tower staff did a good job of organizing the event and managing the line. There was a reasonably sufficient amount of communication via announcements. They wristbanded the line at 12:30 or so and in the evening when the line re-formed, they sorted everyone into numeric order and there weren't any conflicts, at least as far as I know.

Tori did a signing for at least 60 people -- 30 radio contest winners and 30 Tower Records contest winners, plus an unknown quantity of random others. The signing was held before the performance and when it was over, the staff allowed the wristband folks in.

Inside there were about 75 people seated on the floor and everyone else stood behind them in a big semi-circle. There was no stage; the Boesendorfer sat flat on the floor. Presently, Tori appeared on the staircase and descended into a storm of thoroughly enthusiastic applause.

The performance itself was much better than I was expecting. I was hoping, of course, that it would be wonderful, but I was keeping my expectations in check since I knew it was going to be very short.

As it turned out, such cautiousness wasn't necessary. At all. The half hour set was simply amazing. Tori was totally engaged and engaging from the very first note. Her voice was gorgeous and she brought each song to life with that flowing precision we have come to know and adore. There was eye contact a-plenty.

If you listened to the broadcast you already know how great she sounded, and you know she did Silent All These Years, Take To The Sky, Winter, Angels, and Seaside. I, personally, was thrilled with the song selection.

After Seaside she bid us farewell in her Tori way and disappeared out the exit.

A short and sweet performance. Just enough to make 2005 seem far away indeed.