Click this logo to go to the Tori News Page

Italian Radio Uno
October 17, 2002

 ToriNews
 Toriphiles
 Articles
 TV/Radio
 Tour Info
 Music
 RAINN
 Merchandise
 Extras
 
 Search / Map
 Entry Page

Tori did a solo live performance for Italian radio station Radio Uno on October 16, 2002. Radio Uno broadcast this concert on October 17, 2002. Below you will find a list of the 10 songs she performed solo at the piano, a transcript of the interview and a review by someone who heard the program. You can download this radio show from hereinmyhead.com and collectingbees.com.

Tori performed the following songs:

Scarlet's Walk
Mr Jesus
Pancake
A Sorta Fairytale
Carbon
Crazy
Virginia
Strange
Improv/Purple People
Wednesday/Cooling

Transcript of the Interview and Reviews of the performance:

From Silvia (China):

As you know I was able to assist to Tori's radio performance on 16th in Rome for RADIOUNO (thank you Carlo!).The show was indeed broadcasted on 17th and it was a world premiere,cause it seems the other radio performances she was doing in these days cannot be broadcasted until the album is published. Any way, as you certainly saw, the setlist was:

Scarlet's Walk
Mrs Jesus,
Pancake,
A sorta fairytale,
Carbon,
Strange,
Crazy,
Virginia,
Wednesday (partial)/Purple people
Cooling

the interview in which the dj seemed a little in trouble dealing with Tori's answers ... heh heh

dj: thank you so much for being with us,thank you for coming to play it's really a pleasure,it's a honor for us and as I said before, congratulations for the album which I think is really a masterpiece,so thanks again

Tori: thank YOU for coming ,people who've driven all over the place.

dj: Scarlet's walk is a journey through America,Scarlet moves from L.A.,meets tons of people,the good and the bad and after all this travelling she feels herself changed as it happens everytime you go on the road,is that a correct vision of the record?

Tori: that's a good vision of the record. (laughs as the audience)

DJ: is that all?I mean because otherwise I have to go on to the next question...(laughs)

Tori: going to the next question,yeah.

dj: va bene (alright)

Tori: what kind of wine do you like?

dj: sorry?

Tori: what kind of wine do you like?

dj: ahm, red wine

tori: do you?

dj: mmh

tori: italian?

dj: yeah,also Californian...do you prefer...your best wine is my best wine [a very strong personality!!!!]

tori : tonight ITALIAN (funny face)

dj: mmh mmh (laughs and applause from audience)

dj: how important it was for your writing the remembering of the stories that your Cherokee grandfather told you when you were a child?

tori: I think something happened so that when I was trying to rock my daughter to sleep,you know at a certain point you're trying to sing lullabies that will get them to sleep and it's uah uah ( baby's cry),so you try every thing you know,you know I let my (???) go a long long time ago so you start singing anybody's song. And then finally I would talk to her and I started remembering that my grandfather would get me to sleep by telling me stories,he rocked me on the porch with his smoking pipe,I can still remember the smell of that pipe, and he would tell me stories.

dj: many songs deal with the violence toward Native American and Scarlet travels by Little Big Horn,Wounded Knee,so I love America but the question is, how can a country that started its history with a genocide pretend [ here I think the dj meant claim,not pretend..it's a common error because pretendere that is claim in italian is so similar to the verb to pretend...you know false friends and all that stuff]  to be the mother of democracy?

Tori: you mean the FATHER

(laughs from audience)

dj: the father,ok.

here the dj (in italian) claims she did know the questions before his interview and that's the reason why she makes fun of him...well I think that's not the reason...the only reason is a very large gap of I.Q. between the 2.

Tori: I think that as I was researching for this record, a Native American woman came back to see me on the last tour and she said to me that people that hold the land and the white brother who owns the land must come together for the sake of our survival.And I said to her"but so much has been taken from you and your people already" and she said,and there were tears rolling down her face,and she said "Sadly enough,my dear.The white brother only took the land,now he needs to come and take more" , and I think in that moment I understood activism in a way that I haven't understood before.This woman,older, knows fanfare but her commitment to building bridges to people who has not integrated her story,her people,her culture...she's still as compassionate and holds this space by the fire.When you stop holding a space by the fire,then there's no chance for the people who own the land to know what they really don't have access to.It isn't taught in our schools,their culture is segregated ,they're merchandised ],yet they're still willing to share even when they've lost so much.Yet still not pretend that agreements weren't broken,that there wasn't betrayal, so I learned a lot in this woman's activism that she carried a torch and she carried a tomahawk but she carried compassion in her other hand.

Dj translates

Tori: I have a question now.How did you remember all that?

audience laughs

dj: no no no no.I've just made it up...I just..

Tori: wow

dj: I was talking about the charactre of the first song which is Amber Waves which is a line from America the beautiful but also the name of the porno actress in the movie Boogie Nights.So even in her name there's all the magnificence,all the corruption which ,I guess, is a metaphor for not just herself but for something more.

Tori: that's right.

audience laughs

dj: so it's one short answer and one long answer...

Tori: ya, you know what? you can come with me and I can bring you to America and you can do my interviews for me otherwise

dj: the 2 biggest post 9-11 records are The Rising by Bruce Springsteen and the new Pearl Jam record.They're very different one another because The Rising is full of optimism,faith,even anger, but strength.The Pearl Jam record is full of disillusion and pain.How would you...where would you put your record?Close to who?

tori: where'd you put it?

dj: Ah!

Tori: are you putting me in between 2 men?

dj: I would like to put you in between

Tori looks astonished

dj: that was supposed to be the long answer..

Tori: mmmh,ah! (laughs).well, I guess writing a story that really is about real people and real events but at the end of the day it is about dicovery and it's maybe about betrayal,inner as well as outer,and I think Scarlet is every woman because she bleeds,so she's any woman,she's a thread,this thread takes all of her body map,she begins to believe that all of us have their own unique body map and if you put you under a miscroscope,or me, you couldn't see it but it's here (ponts to her heart),it is emblazoned(???) here...mh..question that were being asked after the Twins went down,what will you do today if tomorrow doesn't come and I think that is a core question that I heard asked across the country.If you put aside leaders or people who really are leaders but have not that title,then you go to the core and that's what she's trying to find,who is this soul,this being that we call America but was never our mother until she was lying wounded ,until we could smell her burning.

Next questions were from audience.

dj: any plans on coming on tour to Italy?

Tori: oh,yes!

audience: when ?when?

Tori: early in the new year, that's the idea.

dj: any chance that this record could become a book?

Tori: no.

laughs

dj: is there any relation between the interior journey of Boys for Pele and Scarlet's Walk?

tori: ...puzzled mommy..I was rocking on different substances then...that could be all kind of influences,different people,I did not have a daughter then,I wasn't a mommy then,so I was taking a journey,that's for sure.

dj: last questiom:is there any other thing that you'd like to say to Italian audience?

Tori: Brunello di Montalcino 1997 (laughs) so!



it was a magical experience,the set was all lighted by candles.She wore a very beautiful black dress decorated with white glitter snow flake and very high heels boots. At the end everyone was invited to go out of the room except 15 of us.then she came to greet us dressed with jeans and a blue t-shirt,kissed and hugged everyone.we gave her flowers and she did some group pics with us.She was so kind and sweet,she thanked us so much for being there and said there were a good energy that night.

then she went away saying:" take care of yourselves"

then a very kind Sony employee brought us some pics and album and single covers signed by her..then they left us with her piano, some of us took pics on the bench , I even played a bit of Icicle and Little Amsterdam with her Bosendorfer...I was shaking for the emotion... I guess I could never ever forget that night in Rome for the rest of my life.


From Obelix69stp:

I just wanted to give a different view of the concert because I disagree that the interviewer was rubbish. I found the whole thing really refreshing. I am a huge tori fan and think she is the best live singer around. However, I found the actual concert part a bit hit and miss. Maybe it was because some of the songs were new to me and so I didn''t notice the melodies straightaway. Some of the songs were brilliant, but some just felt hurried to me. Mind you, the schedule she's had in the last couple of months, no wonder if she's tired and wants to get through them as quickly as possible. With that said, the concert was still pretty good and a lot longer than I was expecting. Purple People was cool, along with the improvisations she did after messing up. Seemed like a genuine cock-up to me. Cooling was good too. I didn't agree with most people in that Sorta Fairytale sounds slower and sadder when sung live. This was the song I least liked from the concert, yet I really like the single. The album version is the best though in my opinion. As for the other songs, I can't really remember which one's stuck out and which I wasn't keen on. I seem to remember Mrs Jesus as being good and Strange sounded good too.

As for the interview, I really enjoyed it! I thought the interviewer handled Tori really well, considering we know how cookie she can be! I think she seemed to be having fun, teasing him a little. I thought she was relaxed and at ease. For example, when he said that it wasn't easy with her because after one question she would just say 'yes' or 'no' and after another she would give a really long answer, she laughed and said she would take him to America with her and he could do her interviews over there too. Another question she answered by asking him if he liked wine. He was confused, but like I said, I think she was gently teasing him sometimes. Another time he translated her really long answer into Italian for what seemed like an eternity and she said, 'ok, now I have a question for you - HOW did you remember all that?!'. And he laughed and said, 'I just made it all up!'.

From Italian Toriphile mindhalo:

I'm listening to the 'ending titles' of the tori broadcast here on radio 1 (actually, the radio edit of a sorta fairytale). I wish I could give you the complete/correct list of songs that were played, but I'm unfamiliar with most of the new stuff. what I can tell is that tori played 10 songs, solo on piano, & that it was _beautiful_.

something about the song from the words/lyrics I picked:

1. scarlet's walk (although later the speaker called it 'amber waves'? I could swear she sang scarlet's walk, though)

2. mrs. jesus (well I'm pretty sure about this one)

3. pancake (cause I can look your god right in the eyes)

4. a sorta fairytale ('radio edit' version, but without the last chorus)

5. carbon (I think, she quotes 'snow glass and apples' on this one -- 'nothing's what it seems' -- and the chorus rings as 'keep your eyes on her')

6. crazy (yes :))

7. ??? ('she will betray all that she loves and even wait for the saviour to come')

8. (when will I learn)

9. purple people

10. cooling

xx. interview

the broacast lasted about 74 minutes &opened/closed with the aforementioned ASF radio edit. the speaker introduced tori to an audience of one hundred lucky bunnies (I mean, people :P) & to the ones who were listening from home. he stressed the fact that this broadcast actually featured the WORLD PREMIERE of scarlet's walk songs, since no other radio beside rai radio 1 had obtained permission to broadcast tori's in studio performances before the album release. (yay).

I loved the set thoroughly, even though, like I mentioned, I didn't know the songs, nor exactly what to expect. the set was very melodic, even opera-esque in some bits (I believe), but not melodramatic. It reminded me of songs that I've heard of perhaps just 'felt' sometime in my life. tori seems to really be settling into the storyteller mode, the songs sounding cohesive and broad.

a sorta fairytale was impressing & impressingly quiet, with tori singing almost a cappella, with little and lite pianowork. it made me wonder what the other songs sound in their 'full' album version, how different they could be.

several intros sounded so familiar that I'd almost thought she was going on a retrospective/nostalgia ride through under the pink or pele songs. which she didn't.

then, when she came back for the 'encore' she performed a short improv that sounded like 'agent orange' and chanted like 'what key are you in...' and at first I thought it was another new song, then I thought she was going into 'hey jupiter', but actually become 'purple people'.

& she did it again, the improv thing, for the second encore song (that was cooling), attempting to play a song, she said, she'd heard in a store some day, but kind of messed up (willingly?) and laughed and said 'nah that was cacca' (I guess you'll be delighted to know that 'cacca' means 'poo' in italian, yes :P). & she went on with her own girl.

I must say that I'm a bit unimpressed by the interview -- perhaps tori was tired or distracted (by the audience, by the speaker's clumsy english) & I figure not being able to see her took away a great deal of what she meant to convey, but uh she sounded a little edgy to me. in with a 'yes/no, next question please' sort of attitude (?). there were, obviously, things she wanted to say and that she'd talk about and thoroughly, whereas refraining to elaborate on others. I'd not dare to put off a full transcript of what she said, but she talked about her cherokee grandfather and the native indian woman she'd met last year while touring and how scarlet's a true woman because, you see, she bleeds. when asked if there was anything she absolutely wanted to say to the italian audience, she answered 'brunello di montalcino 1997' (a fine red wine).



Go Back To TV/Radio

Go Back To ToriNews

Please give me feedback, comments, or suggestions about The Dent. Email me (Mikewhy) at mikewhy@iglou.com