A review of Tori's November 15th show in Camden, NJ appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer on November 18, 2002. Many thanks to Tuffy.

Tori Amos soars beyond the ethereal at Tweeter
By A.D. Amorosi
For The Inquirer

If there's a scent of healing sage stick in the air and kids garbed in combinations of goth-and-granola, it must be a sold-out Tori Amos show. This one, Friday night at the Tweeter, had the air of a church gathering as fans quietly paid respect to the goddess of ethereal emotional angst who could - and did - jar wispy musical moments into hard epic action at the drop of a hat.

Draped in a flowing pink something, piano-pounding Amos and her two-man rhythm section jumped from the gently flowing and pastoral to eerie, but taut, atmospherics, creating as much of heady house/dub-bass groove as Amos' panicky pretty songs could bear. With the exception of a several-song suite of solo piano songs, Amos and her ambient duo utilized the spartan vibe sensationally, never losing sight of her tremulous intricate arrangements.

Her syllable-slurring voice - occasionally marred by a lousy mix - leap-frogged elegantly with a roller-coastered esprit through winding melodies and jazzy complex blast-off breaks most noticeable on tunes from the travelogue that is her new CD, Scarlet's Walk. Whether quietly growling, wearily murmuring the words "love you baad," or yelping into the heavens, Amos is exacting as a singer, creating choruses of sighs and whispers.

Never shy where confrontation's concerned, Amos takes on a tragedy-struck America by delving into its shell-shocked psyche - like the proud rebel boys of "A Sorta Fairytale." These characters figure aptly into the complexity of her own personae; the damaged, loving goods of "Crucify," the quixotic tiny dancer of "Concertina." "Cornflake Girl" seems to nail it best - with butterfly-fluttered piano and arching voice, Amos uses sexiness as a weapon to present the criminal choirgirl within.

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