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Thanks to David Mobley for bring this press review to my attention. You can read it online at omaha.com or below.


Review: Amos woos Orpheum audience

BY CHRISTINE LAUE
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Tori Amos' voice cut through the pre-show crowd chatter, causing screams and applause as audience members turned their eyes to a curtain glowing in orange and pink lights. Flawlessly, she sang the a cappella "Wampum Prayer" from her new album, "Scarlet's Walk," before the curtain opened and she walked onstage, sultry and confident, dancing and cozying up to her shiny black Bosendorfer piano like it was a guy at a bar.

When her fingers first touched the keys, the crowd could feel the electricity between the singer-songwriter and her instrument, and it erupted in screams again.

Wearing a flowing wrap dress covered with deep mauve, brown and cream diamonds over shiny denim-blue capris, Amos played "A Sorta Fairytale," the first single from "Scarlet's Walk." As her fingers and voice painted a picture of Scarlet and a lover riding in a car, she dropped her head and shoulders back, singing: "I put the hood right back where you could taste heaven perfectly."

For a sold-out crowd of 2,600 people, Monday night in the Orpheum Theater was a perfect taste of heaven in all her red-haired glory. Amos' 1992 debut, "Little Earthquakes," began cultivating the cult following that has helped her sell more than 12 million albums and sell out shows with fans like Missy King, who drove from Chicago to Omaha for the fifth of seven consecutive concerts she and friends are attending.

"She's incredible," King, 22, said. "There's no words for it."

Some found them, shouting: "I love you, Tori!"

"Love you back!" Amos said quickly before launching into a four-song set in which her band exited, leaving her alone with her piano. The set included "Silent All These Years," a "Little Earthquakes" song that, like much of her older material, elicited the biggest cheers of the night.

With her band, Amos performed "Crucify," another "Little Earthquakes" song, as she rhythmically repeated the line "I am never going back again to crucify myself."

She spent most of the night between her piano and keyboards like a cook working the line, turning her back to one as she played the other, or playing the piano with one hand, the keyboards with the other.

Back and forth, she worked for two hours - 19 songs plus two encores of two songs each.

Opening act Rhett Miller, who is touring as a solo artist as his alt-country band the Old 97's takes a break, won the crowd over - a tough task for an acoustic act in a big hall. By belting out his smart-pop solo and Old 97's songs and rocking out like an 8-year-old with a toy guitar, Miller impressed fans and proved that acoustic acts are not always subdued.