Tori did an Alice Lounge VIP performance for San Francisco, CA radio starion Alice 97.3 (KLLC) on Friday, December 20, 2002 at the W Hotel. Tori performed the following songs solo at the piano:

a sorta fairytale (part of it, stopped for tech issues)
various small improvs
Carbon
a sorta fairytale (again)
Strange

You can find photos from this performance at RadioAlice.com. At this time they also have a RealAudio stream of Tori performing a sorta fairytale. Thanks to Jessika and Alexandra Phillips for first telling me about that. Look below from commentary from people who were lucky enough to attend this small, private performance.

Commentary

From Haullie:

(I finally met Tori for the first time)

So yesterday was a loud cold rainy day...

I did so many things. To top the day I had my 3 cups of coffee, paid the price as I had to go to the bathroom 20 times that day and so did my friend Bree. Never drink too much coffee before any showgirls *wink*.

Anyway so we get to San fransisco and everything just isn't going as planned. I'm thinking okay we are going to a VERY private little Tori show. My anxiety level went from 'No it's not going to happen' to 'I'm wearing a fuckin badge saying I am a VIP member'. So yeah, it sunk in.

So we get to the 'Alice Lounge'. It wasn't a real place. Come to find out it's a place they named a 'Great Room' of a Hotel. A 30 X 20 (or 30 X 30)foot room with a piano next to the wall. You know those rooms buisiness people hold their chart meetings in? It was about that size.

They served us Wine of all kinds and Gormet Cheeses and sandwiches to die for. I've never had rich people food (haha) before and apperantly it was all set up by Tori Amos (and Alice Lounge) so it was nice. They had crystal bead thingiesjust strone out on the tables and all of this fancy Christmas stuff (Ornaments) around in purples, blues and silvers. We weren't allowd to take cameras inside the show but I did take pictures of the outside so I can show everyone at a later time.

We were on the third floor of the 'W Hotel'. That's right, that was the name of the hotel. The 'W' stands for nothing. Use your imagination.

Okay so Tori is about 3 hours late and I'm coming down from being"tipsy" and before you know it I'm just not"tipsy" anymore. See we took a trip around the corner to try this wine from this brewing beer company and anyway to make a long story short I had two glasses of very potent wine and it put me into spirits.

So back at the Lounge we are, and now the place has gone from 3 people to 20 people, then it went from 20 of us to 30 of us and so on. Then they just stopped coming. So it was 30 to35of us (Guessing). We were walking around, having cheese (YUM!). Anyway so the cheese was spectacular and some of the people there weren't VIP and just talked their way in. Which was cool cause there wasn't many of us there anyway and there was some room.

So apperantly we were on the radio (After Tori) I think they recorded us which is what the site says, we got to finally go in at about 3:15 December 20th 2002. And we enter and I'm thinking we are going to be entering this large ballroom type area behind those doors. It was no bigger than a classroom girls and boys! And there is Tori's Piano! Bree and I chose a seat in the very back right where Tori could look at us at a comfortable view so that was nice. Each table had a white candle on a purple table cloth with colorful beads. I snatched three of those beads. Momentos! Cause I'm cool like that! haha

Then after about 15 more minutes the announcer comes out saying "Please welcome the faery goddess herself, Tori Amos". And Tori comes out of the door right behind me to my right. I was like "NO WAY!" She's right there!

Tori was dressed in a peachy/pink/grey/blue flowered scarfy type over lay dress type fabric. She was dressed in something I'd say a faery would wear, it was beautiful. Her hair was up in this half up and half down look pinned all around with a flower to the side which was just too cute.

She comes to the piano and waves and is just about to sit down and she doesn't, her first hit of the piano was standing up. She starts to play the song 'A Sorta Fairytale (No band). We were on ALICE 97.3. Then right in the beginning of the song she stops playing and says "where did we Fuck up at?......." and continues talking (I have no transcript so this is all by memory). The sound crew didn't have everything up to par so Tori sat there talking to us for a good minute and a half about STUFF. She even tried to get one of her crew guys a date with any of the girls in the small crowd lol.

So then the talking stops and her face is so cute hehe. She says "Are we okay now?" and she begins to play something improved and it's too sweet. We think it was about the man she was trying to get a date for. The song was called 'Devil Girls'. Maybe I'll get the lyrics some time. hehe but the song was too cute for words. Very slow.

After that song she played for us another improve of a Christmas song. I remember some of the lyrics....

"I'm wrapping up boxes with ribbons and bows, for Mommy and Daddy and all of those I have retraining orders for...... (We laugh)" (all lyrics from memory here, will get the real ones soon)

After the lovely weird Christmas song she says to everyone "Shall we play song number two now?" and plays beautifully the song 'CARBON' which Oh My God I almost cried when I heard, it was too beautiful for words.

Tori was talking a lot so it was good to hear her. If I ever get a hold of a real transcript I shall have to show you everything, it's too precious.

Right before the next song I yell out loud "I LOVE YOU!" and Tori says, "I Love You back!" and then just winks and waves. yay that was so sweet!

After playing 'Carbon' she tries for a swing at the song 'A Sorta Fairytale' again playing this time all of the way through which was too adorable hehe. Cause during the song she was just too flowing.


After she played 'A Sorta fairytale' she just went right into playing the song 'Strange' which was amazing to say the least. She was brilliant. She seemed to almost cry it was so beautiful.

After everything was over Tori waves goodbye to us and left to gain a breather as we clapped. The announcer came back out and said Tori would like to take her picture with everyone. Then it sank in. I knew I was going to meet Tori in person. All that I was feeling was just kind of flurishing and it became about the chance at hand. The chance itself.

I had this little purple envelope in my hand, a letter to Tori. I didn't tell her in the letter whoI was or what I did to help other Survivors around the world in her name (Honor). I thought well maybe I should tell her in person some day. The letter said something along the lines of 'On behalf of all Ears with feet, survivors, women and men thank you for bringing us a little piece of your heaven and being so kind hearted to share, shareing with us your love brought us all peace in some way or another." something like that, not exact words. But anyway so the letter was very nice. I decorated it with a drawing of wines and grapes and leaves and flowers.

We all line up and out comes Tori. Now she just turned into a normal person to me, it was wonderful. She's talking and saying Hi to people. We get in a group of four girls to take our picture with Tori. So I'm standing right next to the piano which is to my left. and as I'm walking past the piano I just lay my hand on it and just oh i don't know, caress it's wood exterior for a few moments. The Piano is so beautiful in real life, up close it isn't as big as you'd think, it's perfect. Every piece of this piano has a reflection of beauty and gold.

Bree then takes my coat and my bag and sets them down for me, how nice of her and we walk right up to Tori. I do remember our conversation so I'll just do it like a dialogue if thats okay

TORI: "Hi, what is your name?"

HAULLIE: "My name is Haullie."

TORI: "Hi there Haullie"

HAULLIE: "I am a survivor Tori"

(We hug now for a little bit)

TORI: "ohh? I understand, you know?"

HAULLIE: "I just wanted to thank you so much (I break down and start crying in front of her, then she holds my hands inside of hers while I talk) for helping me with your music. I now run a web site in your name alltheseyears.net to help survivors and I have started a fundraiser as well, I couldn't have gotten through this without you with me."

TORI: "Oh Haullie thank you! (She looks sad) We all need that."

HAULLIE: "Umm, I just have this letter for you, it's all I brought, please have it."

TORI: "Oh yes thank you.." (She takes the letter)

Then just like out of like sheer emotional impact I reach out to Tori and I just grab her and hug her and she just hugged right back and we must have hugged for like 10 seconds and I cried and she just held me and it felt so nice to feel someone else just be there and just listen to me. I'm glad Tori was the first Survivor I had the chance to meet that I knew of, off-line (hehe.)

So the embrace was too sweet.

(NOTE: When you first meet Tori the moment seems like it lasts forever, we probably were only there with Tori for a minute and a half but it seemed like forever)

Now the other girls come in and they all say something to Tori. Bree said "I've loved you for the longest time". I'm standing right next toTori still as she is talking. Then it's time to take our picture and we all move in. I put my arm around Tori's waist, she puts her arm around mine and bree cause we are on either side hehe. And we take a picture together, all four of us. Yay! Tori then looks up at the camera and says

"Oh this is the LOVE bunch!"

So after the picture Tori turns to me and says "You take care" and she holds up the letter that I had given to her. Looking at me like she wished she had more hours in the day to just be with people she knows has had this impact on them and just shrungs her arms so cutely. It was adorable. I think she knew I wanted to say more but we just couldn't. I think it must be so hard on any artist who touches people's lives to feel like they want to be there more for those they help but they just can't you know, they just don't have that much time in one day. But I hope she realized that it's okay, that was enough for me, Getting to tell her what she meant and to tell her about my accomplishments was enough.

Then she says "Goodbye everybody"

and I turn around and I say to her "Bye Tori, enjoy your letter."

and she waves to us again. Then we leave the 'W Hotel' after like 20 minutes because we went downstairs where bree's Husband was having a drink and needed to finish it.

So there you have it everyone, I met Tori. I shall post my concert review some time soon, I do not know when. Right now I'm just in shock over this VIP show. I guess our pictures are going to be e-mailed to us so whenever I get mine back I don't care how ugly and fat I look I'm showing you lol. I'm very proud of this. Only like maybe 30 people in al of California got this expirience and i was a part of it and all I ever wanted to do was thank Tori for everything and get to just have a moment and my dream came true. So I have a lot to be very thankful for. Just know, Tori knows what I do now so she is very proud indeed. That was enough to inspire me to keep going, to keep doing more with my life. We all need a little motivation sometimes. I found some in her music.

Love, Haullie

(I tried to make my expirience through my eyes as accurate as possible, I'm still in shock so I'm trying hard to remember everything, I hope you enjoyed my Tori Story. If you would like to visit my web site further information is stated below)

All These Years

Tori Amos Inspired Site for Survivors of Sexual Abuse

http://www.alltheseyears.net

From Lois Langevin:

Well, it has been a whirwind weekend I must say, I feel a bit sad that it is all over.

Tori's flight from LA to SF was delayed, so the Alice Lounge which was suppose to being at 1:00 did not begin until 2:30. Graciously, Alice and the Hotel W had a nice lunch spread for us. I attended with my friends Elaine, Megan and Sarah. We chatted with the mid day Dj, Sterling and a production assistant, Danielle. They both attened the intimate industry only show Tori played earlier this year, needless t osay they were both very excited about hosting her for the lucky winners. We were frist in line at the door we would enter the lounge through. The production assistant let us know that Tori would take a photo with groups of four but did not have time for signing.

Suddenly Tori's sound check began. Unfortunately people would not be silent for the sound check. She sound checked A Sorta Fairytale, Carbon and Strange. soon after we were escorted through the doors. We sat on a round blue couch which was less than 6 feet from the piano with NO BARRIER between the audience and Tori. She came in from "stage left" sat down said hello everyone and began A Sorta Fairytale. There was a terrible bass reverb problem with her monitor. she stopped the song and said the devil girl from the good vibrations tee shirt that Sterling gave her was stuck in her monitor. She than introduced her very kind sound man (not Mark or Marcel)but another kind gentleman from Holland (sorry cannot recall his name).

Megan had a georgeous boquet of flowers for Tori. Tori said, wow, thosr are beautiful flowers, and Megan offered them to her, in a very cut voice Tori said, "for me"? Anyway, tori started to tell us that "Husband has put his foot down, he wants a small family Christmas, Mommy, Daddy, Baby and Stoli in the freezer, you know, he is British, they do things differently. And I cannot cook, Italian is closed but Indian is open so we are sorted with that." Then she started doing a BEAUTIFUL improve (the first of four between the lounge show and the 20th & 21st)I cannot repeat verbatum however, i do rembmer her singing she woke up a Mommy today, tieing ribbons on gifts and husband wants a small holiday, but my mommy can come too. Very cute. She was at that point satisfied with the sound, she let her soundman know, lets start with #2 song, Carbon. This song is so very beautiful, amazing intro she took her time with every word every key, making eye contact. Then A Sorta Fairytale (radio edit :(), and Strange, she looked at me a lot during the when will I learn, and ....enough love for the both of us, drove me to tears. Then it was time to line up for photos. She tooke her time with each group. Elaine gave Tori a gift a silk hair flower for her and a couple for Tash wrapped in a package from Elaine's 7 month old son Nikko. The package was wrapped in papper that had a photo of Nikko. She was very thankful. She wore the flower Elaine gave her at the show that night. When it was my time to go the her, I bcame very shy, she said, come here you, how have you been. I told her I would be brinig my 16 year old daugher to the show on Saturday, she said, SHUT Up you look so young. (I am 35) Anyway, when I receive the emails for the photos I will send them to you. she was so gracious and wonderful.