This is more of an concert preview from the August 2, 2003 edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune.
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Tori Amos
Her piano playing ranges from dainty to driving mad, and her delicate voice never fails to enrapture. Ben Folds also plays.
Event Profile
Deck the halls / I'm young again / I'm you again / Racing turtles / The grapefruit is winning ...
Her lyrics may not make any obvious sense to anyone but herself, but singer/songwriter and pianist Tori Amos has millions of fans who staunchly defend her every nonsensical word. They're mostly female, sensitive and dreamy types, who draw a kind of spiritual inspiration from the way Amos enthusiastically rides her piano bench and sings about everything from inner strength to religion. (I can poke fun at these fans because I know; I'm one of them.)
From the moment she surfaced in 1991 with the release of "Little Earthquakes," Amos has tackled the hardened alternative rock sound on her own terms, turning a genre dominated by male grunge and pop-punk into a female-friendly sound tinged with '70s songwriting style. Her releases since the early '90s -- "Under the Pink," "Boys for Pele," "From the Choirgirl Hotel" and "To Venus and Back" -- are a girly slideshow of both silly, random thoughts and Amos' serious, moving autobiography.
Her piano playing ranges from dainty to driving mad, and her delicate voice never fails to enrapture. Straddling her piano bench in live performance, she moves from shiny black grand piano to elegant harpsichord, all the while passionately belting out her "girls" -- Amos' pet name for her songs -- in front of a starstruck, sing-along crowd.
Amos has long called her songs "girls," and her 2001 release, "Strange Little Girls," is a compilation of male artists' songs done her way. From a quiet, gentle "Enjoy the Silence" (Depeche Mode) to a haunting version of Eminem's "'97 Bonnie and Clyde," Amos slips into the psyches of 13 different women (including a pair or twins) as she puts female perspective on 12 men's songs.
She's one strange girl herself, and that's another reason she has so many adoring fans.
By Jennifer Croshaw, SignOn Nightlife Editor
