Tori Fans Dew Drop Inn - July 1996

Last Updated: February 12, 1998

Below, you see stuff that fans have written about the concerts they have seen during July 1996, from most recent to oldest. Thank you again for supporting my web site :)

The day began with the traditional meet and greet behind Toledo's Stranahan Theatre. Toriphiles showed up early, and lazed around in the sunshine on the grass behind the theatre, meeting each other and joining Tori's road crew in playing a few rounds of soccer (or football, as Tori would say). Around 4:30 pm Steve, Tori's bodyguard showed up and played frisbee for a bit, before rounding us up in line for the meet and greet.

The meet and greets seem to be increasing in popularity. There were more than 50 fans, as compared to about 15 behind the Fox Theatre in Detroit two months ago. Quite a few Michiganders who had seen the earlier shows in Detroit made the pilgrimage down to Toledo. Before Tori arrived, Steve and the theatre security put up barricades, which we crowded around, instead of keeping us in a line. Unfortunately this made it more difficult for everyone to reach Tori and say hello, but everyone was cooperative and most people were able to get up to the barricade and say hello to Tori.

Alvin (who runs the now famous Meet and Greet with Tori Amos page at http://www.tir.com/~aalcid/tori.htm), his friend George, myself and my significant other Michael anxiously awaited our turn with Tori. When she approached me, she said "hello, I know you, we've come a long way together, haven't we? You drove quite a few miles to get here. So HOW ARE YOU?" and focused her gaze and attention on me. Those of you who have met her know what this is like- she has a way of really gazing at you, as if you are friends who go way back (and in a way we all are). I was amazed that she remembered me from the Detroit shows and the shopping trip in Birmingham (hopefully she doesn't remember me as some crazed hotel lurker!). But Tori is ALWAYS amazing. I gave her a ring (called the angel soulmate ring) that matches one I wear, and told her how I consider her one of my soulmates in life. She smiled and said that hearing that means a lot to her. I got one of those trademark Tori hugs, and she posed for a picture together.

Next it was Alvin's turn! He showed her a photo album of the Detroit meet and greet photos, and I told Tori about Alvin's great Tori obsession page (http://www.tir.com/~aalcid/obsessed.htm), and she smirked a bit at that. I then took a photo of Alvin and Tori, which you will all probably see soon on his site.

After the meet and greet, seven of us Michigander toriphiles went to Rosie's across the street for some half-off pizzas and toritalk, which was great fun. One of the best things about going to a Tori show is meeting other toriphiles, and speaking the same language. There was a good vibe at the theatre before the show, as people met each other and traded stories and information. I think we are becoming the new deadheads (toriheads?)!

Finally the main event was at hand. Michael and I took our front row center orchestra pit seats (I know, we are lucky), along with toriphile Craig (who has 17 Tori autographs I hear), and the show began with Willie Porter, whom I had not seen before. He did a good job and is quite talented.

Tori came on to the sounds of "Son of a Preacher Man" and took the stage, doing her energetic two handed wave. Her piano was set back further than I had seen before on the stage, perhaps as a security precaution since two people have run up on stage during this tour. Dressed in bluejeans, a blue shirt with a dark vest, and her hair pulled back, she looked ready to begin. And so she did with "Beauty Queen" and "Horses." Then she surprised us by playing "Take to the Sky," pounding the rhythm on her piano. This set the vibe of the show. Throughout, Tori seemed happy, energetic and playful. She had a lot of smiles for Steve Caton, and seemed to enjoy herself. Even when later doing "Tear in Your Hand," which is a rather sad song, she smiled and was upbeat. And she did that cute "Cornflake Girl" dance at the edge of the stage.

She also spoke to the audience a fair amount, which she seems to do more after having a day off. She said that Neil called her on the phone today, to say that he screwed up a joint interview they did together for the British press, where they were asked if they knew each other in a previous life. Apparently Neil couldn't resist answering this question with some seriousness, which made it all the worse. She said we would all see the article soon enough. She added that Neil's one and a half year old daughter asked her dad if Tori would be over their house today, but then figured she was in the shower instead. Tori asked Neil when his daughter had said this, and apparently this was said at the time Tori was indeed in the shower, so Tori said his daughter was the smartest one of them all.

Throughout the show, Tori wove new intros or new verses into her songs. I particularly remember her singing a line about being "sweet as I kick you out the door" before launching into "Putting the Damage On." And during one of her songs, some person in the audience starting screaming (I'm not sure what he was screaming), and she sang "I know, everyone has to scream sometimes," without missing a beat.

For the last song, we were treated to "Purple Rain" on the harmonium, which was absolutely beautiful, and brought back memories of the Ann Arbor October 1994 show for quite a few of us. Bathed in purple light, she gave us the perfect ending to a solid and upbeat show which we will not soon forget.

Here is the complete set list:

Beauty Queen
Horses
Take to the Sky
Caught a Lite Sneeze
Cornflake Girl
Honey
Little Earthquakes
Leather
Putting the Damage On
Precious Things
Doughnut Song
Tear in Your Hand
Talula
Me and a Gun

Encore 1
Twinkle
Baker Baker

Encore 2
Past the Mission
Purple Rain

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This was my 6th time seeing Tori this tour and this show would rate my 2nd favorite. She played 2 of my favorite Bsides and Leather, so I was happy as a lark. :) I barely made it to the Theatre before she arrived at the soundcheck (5 more minutes and I would've missed her!!), so I was able to give her a letter and get my picture taken with her.

After I met her, I was wandering around the Theatre. All of a sudden I heard a piano and a woman's voice. It was coming from behind 2 large metal doors. I put my ear to the door and realized it was Tori rehearsing!! I sat down and listened while she warmed up....I could hear her fairly well, except when heavy traffic was driving by. She played 2 or 3 songs that I did not recognize....one of them was probably Butterfly, but I did not recognize the others....new songs maybe? I could also hear Caton....he warmed up by playing some aerosmith-sounding guitar licks. Altogether, it was like my own personal little concert.....I was in Seventh-Tori Heaven!

The almost-naked bicyclist that made an appearance on Sat. showed up again, but this time he rode across the stage twice, then walked on and waved his cowboy hat around. What a guy.

I never spotted a rmt-a shirt, even though I looked and looked. :( Where was everyone?

set list (not complete or in order)

BQ
Horses
Leather
Bells For Her on Harpsicord -
Space Dog
Between SD and CG someone shouted "Cornflake Girl." Tori, with a slight
look of disgust, said "Everyone on the fucking internet knows that
Cornflake Girl is next!" The crowd burst out in laughter and Steve
started his guitar intro. Tori's little dance before CG was longer and
different than I've seen her do in the past...but still very cool.
Cornflake Girl
CaLS
Talula
Butterfly
Take to the Sky
Icicle - with Onward Xian Soldiers intro (I think)
Precious Things
MaaG
first encore
Upside Down
Cloud on My Tongue

Second encore
Voodoo
Here, In My Head
Daniel

The review in the Peoria paper was par for their course, mostly undigested press kit paragraphs. I copied down the highlight & lowlight from a little boxed section, and the few paragraphs & quotes which seemed new. I used to live there, family still does, I was dying to go, it wasn't possible, I couldn't even get anyone I knew there to go, they don't know Tori, I hope someone sends their *own* personal review!! From the Journal Star...

Highlight: From the first moment that she appeared, Amos immediately sought and held her fans' attention and for the next half hour she accompanied herself on piano and harpsichord, while singing strange melodic tunes about lovers, relationships with friends, horses and religion. Although this reviewer found some of her music to be complicated and difficult to interpret, her fans seemed to enjoy every note and word.

Lowlight: an incredibly long intermission between Amos and her opening act Willie Porter, a folk guitarist/singer.

(From the review/article): Her views on "Boys For Pele": "I think that every instrument is a character, and sometimes you only want one character. You can't play Clue with just Professor Plum."

(note: I get the feeling the quotes were mostly out of context and probably a bit poorly transcribed.)

On the # of shows: "They haven't counted all the double shows, and I do a double once a week," Amos explains matter-of-factly. "It's a lot of shows."

On BFP: "The whole record is a descent to find my own fire. And fire's just a metaphor. To go there, though, I had to begin to look at certain fragments (of myself) that I didn't want to."

A coupla paras from the review/article, in entirety:

The song "Father Lucifer," in particular, seems an attempt to delve into darker themes. Amos explains that the song has nothing to do with Satanism but with the mythological idea of a place where certain feelings reside.

"So for anything that we as beings don't want to look at, we put it in this place. It's a mythical place that we call Lucifer. It's our choice to either want to claim it and see our part of the illusion, or not."

(Harpsi as cleansing ritual for BFP:) "I needed it at the time, because it was after 'Under The Pink,' and I went through a lot of changes, and I needed something to remind me of being a musician, of what my commitment was." Still, it took the prodding of a couple of members of her touring crew to get her to really learn the instrument. "I was just, I guess, a bit lazy. A part of me went, Ugghhh. I didn't think I'd have to go to school again at 32." Amos also knew she couldn't get away with just using the instrument as ornamentation. "It's kind of cheesy for me if I don't learn to play it right. It's a cop-out on my part. It's not like it's a guitar player coming and playing it. I'm a wuss if I don't get that one right."

On being named one of "People" mag's 50 most beautiful people:

"My comment was, and has always been: Where were they when I was 13 ?"

I guess to conclude I could share with you my experience from the show that Tori did in Peoria IL. I'm not sure if you were there. It's probably a lot closer to you than Chicago is. Anyway, she was doing a little intro for the song Marianne. She was saying that she knew this girl and everyone else said that she killed herself, but that I (Tori) didn't believe that. Then someone in the audience shouted something, and she said "What" and this audience person said "God Bless Marianne" and Tori just kind of sat there. She continued to play for a minute. I could see the tears in her eyes, and I was 15 rows away from the stage. Then, after that minutes which seemed to be an enternity, she said "Yeah" and she just played. I don't think there was a dry eye in the place during that song.

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Defiance, Strength and Vulnerability in Indianapolis

Sunday night, July 28, Tori brought her Dew Drop Inn Tour into Indianapolis. On the way to the show, I told my friend Stacey who accompanied me to the concert that I had three wishes for the day. First of all, I wished that Tori at least *knew* about my web page. Secondly, I wanted to hear Pretty Good Year. Finally, I wanted to hear something from Y Can't Tori Read (I'll explain why later.)

Click here to see sound check photos I took at Indianapolis, including me posing with Tori!

We arrived in Indy around 2:00 PM their time. Even though I did not think I remembered where the Murat Theatre was, I got off the Interstate and drove right to it, being surprised once again by my sense of direction. I decided to do the sound check thing. There were already 4 young people there waiting. By 4:20 PM a group of 50 people were waiting quietly and somewhat nervously for Tori's arrival. Then Steve, her bodyguard, put us into a single-file line, told us to behave, and said we could have something signed or have a photo taken, and to be quick about it! Okay, it was an assembly line, speedy meeting with Tori, but hey, it was worth it! And it was kind of interesting feeling like a school boy again, lined up in the hallway. Also, after hearing some of the security staff at the Murat speak, I feel like we should all pitch in and send them a copy of hooked-on-phonics! But I digress.

At 4:30, Tori's white limo pulled up and my temperature soared about 10 degrees. The sun was already beating down on me fiercely, and now I felt like fainting. Agent Orange sprung from the car (Joel, her other bodyguard) and again told us the rules. Tori then came out to the cheers of everyone. She looked really relaxed in a pink, short sleeve top and jeans. We were in line, and I slowly edged my way toward her. At one point, I could hear her exclaim, "I KNOW YOU" to one of the fans in front of me. I felt like melting, but I somehow held it together.

It was my turn. Tori looked my way. I approached her. She smiled at me and said in a really excited tone, "How ya doing baby? HI". I said "Hi Tori" back, grinning like a fool I am sure. She talked to me and everyone like she had known us for years. She was so at ease and well poised. I already knew this from my previous meetings, but it still delighted me.

Now since this was a 'meet her quick and then go' kind of thing, there was not much time. Agent Orange kept things moving swiftly. We hugged and I had my arm around Tori and she had hers around me (SIGH) and my friend Stacey took our photo. (God I hope those photos turn out okay!!!) I then turned toward her and looked into those incredible eyes. She was still smiling and gave me 100% of her attention. I handed to her a little color printout of the first page of my web site. I told her, "I run this web site about you Tori, and I now get hundreds of letters from people who love what you do, and I just want to say on behave of myself and them, THANK YOU for giving us music that makes us think." She looked very intently at the web site for a moment, then looked back at me, held my hand and said "Thank you so much". She looked genuinely moved. I know she said a few more things to me, but I was so nervous and my heart was pumping so loudly in my ear that I do not remember. Then I had to leave to let the next person see her (which was my friend Stacey whose photo with Tori I quickly snapped). SO wish number one happened. Tori at least has heard about my Dent In The Tori Net Universe! She looks so wise and beautiful in person it still amazes me.

I finally calmed down, and we arrived later for the show. For the first time at any Tori show, I was searched at the door. I know this has happened at another Tori show recently, so if you go be aware that you may now be searched. Once again I was one of the oldest people there, but that was okay with me. As I walked to my seat, I noticed that there was an Apple Powermac 8500 behind the lighting console and I was thrilled that Tori made use of my favorite computer in her show! We took our seats in 4th row center and waited.

Willy Porter was entertaining as usual. He is very humorous and laid back up there. He really is a nice and talented guy, and my favorite opening act that she has had so far.

About 5 minutes before Tori came on, we heard what sounded like the theme from Bonanza, and then a skinny guy in his underwear road across the stage twice on a bicycle, waving a cowboy hat around! It was probably one of the stage crew. I knew at that point that they had been on the road a little too long! :)

At 8:50 Indy time Tori took the stage. It is so damn exciting to sit there in the dark and hear Son Of A Preacher Man. Then she came on. She spent a little more time than she usual waving to the audience and acknowledging our presence. Then she got into position, and began the now familiar Beauty Queen/Horses opening number. She looked comfortable in a long sleeve, turquoise blue top and jeans. Her hair was tied back, and she gave her famous wave to the crowd as she held her head down and began Beauty Queen. It is almost unreal how she can just move a little part of her hand and cause the audience to cheer madly!

He performance was fiery and powerful. Then she sang the best version of Sugar that I have ever heard. It sounded very dark and mysterious, and she used her lower voice well here. She was in fine form, and seemed very confident. The intense part in the middle of the song, where she sings "I don't know where I'm going" really moved me. She was gesturing toward us and really getting into it. I do know if that part of the song was taken from something else, or was part of Sugar and I just did not recognize it. In any case it was memorable.

My quotes from Tori are close, but not perfect. She said to us, "Hi guys." She then asked some people up front if they were the ones who sent her a "Bring Us Sugar" sign back stage. She then said that her security guys were really okay, "You didn't think I would get it did you. You thought they would just throw it away. Well you see, you bring me a sign, I'll read it. You bring me 1800, I'll drink it. (little pause) You bring me a gorgeous man, I'll..." and she smiled.

She then began Blood Roses, which left me dizzy with it's fast pace. I then realized that during this part of the show, Tori seemed very strong and defiant. She pounded away at the keyboard. She radiated power and self-assurance. It was amazing to see, and very exhilarating. There was a tremendous amount of energy in that room. The last few weeks had been really emotional for me for several reasons. Seeing Tori in this powerful mood almost made me feel that way too. She was also joyful and having a tremendous amount of fun, and it was contagious.

Little Amsterdam was next, and as usual this song was haunting, with the red light shining on stage and Caton's guitar really adding flavor to the song. Tori's performance was slow, smoky, and sensual. Then her singing grew more emotional as she almost pleaded the words, "This must account for something." Moving beyond words.

Tori then said "This is Caton. I just love Caton, bless you." Caton just blushed and he began Cornflake Girl. Tori did the most energetic and amazing version of the mime dance that I have ever seen. She went to the very edge of the stage with it, which I have never seen her do. At times she had this huge smile on her face, and she also did a move where it looked like she was cradling a baby or something. She was obviously enjoying herself. It was great, and so was the rest of the song. The strength and defiance theme was still there, especially at the end of the song when she sang, "Where'd you put the keys girl?", and she almost snarled the word "girl" at the end!

Caught A Lite Sneeze was next, followed by Space Dog. She did the percussion part of Space Dog using the low notes on the piano. I have never enjoyed this song as much as I did now. The screen in the background was red and had images of planets or suns tumbling by, including one that looked like Saturn. Combined with the rest of the lighting, it really set a mood. Caton's guitar really added a kick to the proceedings, and he was laughing alot and really enjoying himself. I was really pumped after this one!

Tori then had much to say before her next song, Frog On My Toe. She said, "I love margaritas, THIS MUCH" She used her cute little girl voice on the THIS MUCH part and held her hands far apart to show how big her love of them were. "I don't do them all the time, that's why I love them THIS MUCH" (Gesturing wide with her arms again....she was too cute) "You know when you use the right amount of salt and shake it up and yummy yummy yummy." She shakes an imaginary one in her hand and smiles a mile wide. "Then you start to think that everyone is beautiful. No offense guys. I mean you guys have your jokes, the guys in the crew back there, what is it you say, you woke up and chewed your arm off she was so ugly? Well, why do you think we girls take so long in the bathroom? We talk about YOUR ass. We have our OWN stories. Anyway, now I'm fond of my 9 foot Bosey instead." She also said either before or after this, "I think I wrote this (Frog on My Toe) while having too many margaritas, but I can't remember." I still think Frog On My Toe is one of her most touching songs, whether she was intoxicated when writing it or not!

China walked in next, and the song was as smooth and refreshing as flowing water. I then felt a shift in the nature of the show. Having established a base of strength and defiance, Tori seemed more willing to be vulnerable now. The songs seemed a little more sad, more melancholy, almost tearful at times.

Precious Things. The opening made me shiver. It did that the other day when I heard it on the Olympics. You can read my response to this song in my Cincinnati review, because it was the same here. There is no way you can hear her singing and pleading at the end, "Let them wash me clean daddy" and not be deeply moved. We all need that healing. I love this woman.

Doughnut song followed and then Tori said, "This one..she comes alot right now..in spurts...whatever...' She seemed a little loss for words and went into Love Song on the harpsichord. I have never heard her sing this live, and I enjoyed it. Her near scream at the end of the song was incredible. She remained at the harpsichord and began Talula. With the backing tape thumping it was hard to sit still! It was funky and fun! Talula is a name for the strong, spicy woman inside who Tori went to find with the Boys For Pele album. She was celebrating her presence tonight.

In a now common switch of moods that I think would be impossible for most people to do, Tori went from the energetic Talula into Me and a Gun. At times her words were just a whisper. I admire her courage more every time I hear this.

The first encore brought us the always heart-breaking Marianne. The air was so thick with sadness I was almost choking, until Tori made a mistake with the 'pesters and lesters and jesters' part. She sang it wrong, and then sang, "I just mixed my song up, I am sorry" which brought a little humor into the situation. She then did Zeppelin's Thank You from her Crucify EP. This is always a beautiful song to hear live. Someone yelled their appreciation out loud and Tori acknowledged it during the song with a little wave.

She returned with Caton for the second and final encore. She said, "Okay dudes" and began Pretty Good Year. So another wish of mine came true! The intense part in the middle thrilled me as usual. I felt blinding joy. Joy at the song, and blinding because unfortunately some of the stage lighting glared in my eyes, making it difficult to see!

During PGY her harmonium organ was wheeled out. She then went to it and began to play. She hit some low notes that caused some heavy feedback on the speakers. She smiled mischievously and said "Oh Sorry," and began.....

COOL ON YOUR ISLAND! My third wish was granted. perhaps she read my mind. It was only one verse as an intro into the next song, but that was enough for me. When I hear this song, I get the impression that Tori is accepting her past. Despite the fact that she may be embarrassed about that phase of her life, she knows it was instrumental in making her what she is today, and that she really grew as a result. That really affects me, because I would like to accept my past. I need to embrace it and accept it, in order to be a whole and complete person in the present. These thoughts raced through my mind as I heard this YKTR song.

Then she finished the evening with Sister Janet, which is outstanding live. This song is potent and spicy, like Tori herself. She grew really loud and forceful as she wailed "Making it look so easy". The sound of the organ lingered in the air even even after she left the stage, looking very satisfied with the night's performance.

The combination of strength and vulnerability were striking in this show. It was almost as good as the famous Cincinnati show. I left the theatre and drove away into the night, with many inspiring thoughts swirling 'here in my head'. I have now returned to my complicated life back in Louisville. I can only imagine how empty this life would be without her art to guide me.

July 28th..we leave at eleven o'clock in the a.m. to seek out Tori. From Il we..began towards Indianapolis, IN..the quest to see Tori at the Murat Theatre. My friend Sarah of tireswings and other good things, my father..who made it the best day of my life:):)..and unfornately "the girl" who had fought with me over paying for her ticket.rrrrr.:( went with me. At one point "the girl" apologized for eveything..I knew she was being sincere. She had done many things to me during the week..which were very short of being goodgirlscoutdeeds..but she felt rotten..and I accepted her apology..because I wanted to have a fab time, and my nature is NEVER to hold a grudge. I just can't..I like people to much.

I went to soundcheck..talking mainly with Sarah..who was visibly excited..the chance to meet Tori. Even to see her would be enough. My father went with us he was mingling amoungst the older crowd who had gathered to meet Tori. He doesn't even like Tori that much..but he seemed to making some friends. I was nervous..I kept scratching my ankle for no reason at all. I met Jennie while I was scratching my ankle. And gave her the address for rdt and how to subscribe. She was a very sweet girl(I didn't get to see her after show which wasn't good). I began to shake..my hand wouldn't lie still. Shakingshaking and watching the cars go by the security wouldn't let us wait on the property. So we..all 34 of us waited on the sidewalk. If anybody from rdt was there..I'm sorry I didn't get to talk to you.

I had brought some flowers for Caton..daisies, but of course..and he must have gotten there before I did. So I went to the front to the theatre..to see if I could find him..or if a security guard could give him the flowers. He told me I could wait on the property..pretty soon everybody else had noticed..and they all walked over and joined me.

A man with long black hair told us to line up single file..and I knew she would be there any second..my heart was racing. I started talking with the other people in line and I thought this is it, yet it didn't seem like it was happening..it wasn't real yet..not real yet. And then the white limosine pulled up..and I knew..knew..and I saw her hair first..it was tied back. She was wearing a salmon colored v-neck shirt with a black sweatshirt tied around her waist and Levi's..black sandals with a heel. And I broke into tears..the minute I saw her...I couldn't help myself they just flooded and kept coming..kept flowing. The girl in front of me, who I had been talking, to gave me a hug.

Finally it was my turn. "hello sweetie. would you like a hug?" said a voice of an angel. all I could stammer was "very much so." and she had inclosed me her arms and the tears were cascading like small waterfalls. She signed my LE sleeve from my CD..and she spelled my name right which was amazing to me.. because it sounds as through you would spell name witha Y in english..but she spelled it with a J. And then I asked her if I could have a picture.."of course you can, sweetie." And I was in a daze. "enjoy the show sweetie." And I kept thanking her. "thank you so much for everything." I replied almost out of breath. I had forgotten to tell her the little prepared speech I had practiced..but it didn't matter. as I gave the picture I had made for her and the daisies for Caton to Agent Orange..and then we left. I exchanged e-mail addresses with the people I had met in line and while I was waiting..and gave them the address to rdt and how to subscribe..I hope they join.

And I was walking through clouds..and started crying when we left..and another person I met in line..Miranda..I believe that was name. Gave me a hug and told me that she got the same way when she asked Tori to play FOMT...at some other show. She was sweet. And I was so high emotional level girl that I couldn't eat. I couldn't believe that there was still more..that wasn't it. Because that was the most amazingbeautifulglorious thing that has ever happened to me :) :) :) Smiling through the tears..and I couldn't believe it felt like a dream..like the dreams I'd had for weeks before I went. Maybe my experience with Tori wasn't like some of yours..but to me it was the most wonderful thing and I will NEVER forget it. I kept jumping after that..was so happy.so happy. I still am..I don't think this glow is ever going to end.

Now for the show...

BEAUTY QUEEN
HORSES
SUGAR
BLOOD ROSES
LITTLE AMSTERDAM

*she introduced Caton and told us she loved him. Then she powdered her
hands like a gymnast and did a little dance for us..while he played. She
looked like she was cradling a child...swinging the child in her arms.

CORNFLAKE GIRL
CAUGHT A LITE SNEEZE
SPACE DOG*

She did an intro to this song that I didn't recognize..the
song had the word "navy" in it..but that's all I can remember. It was
very musical box. I thought about you, andrea..I hope you can
remember..it was fantabulous. It was your song. So many beautiful
colors..mainly purple, which I knew you would love. I brought the
Azure'(my butterfly) she went to the show...I'd say she quite enjoyed it
as well..she wanted to fly so many times.

FROG ON MY TOE*she told the marguarita story..and then told us who the
near naked bicyclist was...keep reading.

CHINA*I cried and cried..I wanted so badly to hear this live it's always
been one of my very very very favorites.

PRECIOUS THINGS*it was amazing..as I heard the words I started seeing all
the wrist slashing I have done to myself..all the pain..all the people
who have left me. when she ranaway..and The tears came again. And
everything that went wrong..the holes in the walls..thebloodblood and by
the time she got to the end of the song..I felt like I was forgiven.
Like I truely was forgiven for everything and that the pain will never
resurface again. That this time it is never coming back. And I cried
because then..I _knew_ it was over forever. She held the girrrrrrrrrrl
for 37 seconds. And used the 'wash me clean..wash this thing daddy'
line...and that was the impacting moment that it was overover..Tori
had forgiven me..I can forgive me. It is alright.

DOUGHNUT SONG*she sang 'come in Houston' before she began..and it was
so..I can't explain the impact

LOVE SONG

Talula (tornado)

Me and a Gun*you could hear a pin drop..and it was another one of those
highly emotional times..I saw my father cry. My father cried.

Encore 1
Marianne*sweetlaura I thought of you..and sent you happy thoughts..
Thank You

Encore 2
Pretty Good Year
Cool on Your Island(!) into Sister Janet*was amazed to hear anything from
YKTR..even though most have you have written that she has been playing
YKTR songs in concert...And I haven't heard all of them, but it was COYI
and I recognized it and I smiled.

During the intermission before Tori was to came out the song Bonaza was being played behind the curtian by Caton..I would imagine..and a young man only wearing his underwear and cowboy hat was riding a bike across the stage and he did this several times..it was quite humorous. Tori later mentioned in the show that his name was Marso...does anyone know who Marso is? It was gigglelaugh time though he did catch the attention of everybody in the theatre. I assumed that it was probably a dare. Has this happened at any of the other shows..I suppose I would remember reading it?

Tori came out and she was wearing a turquious(I know I butchered that word) long sleeve shirt the same levi's and sandals..and she a pink scrunchie in her hair. She was absolutely captivating. Caton was in all black..black jeans, shirt, shoes, and baseball hat..worn backwards.

It was the best..and my first experience seeing her live. I was really surprised when she didn't close with HJ. It was amazing. I'm looking forward to seeing her again.

first off, i love your tori page - it is my favourite source for info. i was just reading through your quotes from different shows and i can elucidate what was said and happened at one fo the shows. I was at the July 28th show in Indianapolis ... I was the one who made the sign. It was actually a banner made on a beed sheet that said Bring Us Sugar! love the 5th row - jackianne, ben, rex, and chad. we gave the sign to her tour manager who we had previously seen back stage in Louisville ... he took it to her and apparently she liked it ... after beauty queen / horses she broke into sugar! take my breath away ... after the song she said as best i can remember:

ok. who sent me the banner!
we scream.
she smirks and says - you didn't think i would get it did you.
you thought they would just through it away.
well, you see you bring me a sign i'll read it
you bring me a drink i'll drink it
you bring me a man...

and during marianne i thought she just kept singing and said "i just messed up my own song" ... this being during the lesters and jesters part...

so, as you can guess we were blown away that she played sugar let alone acknowledged us!!

ben

ps. we weren't in the first row but the 5th row far right!

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I saw the Springfield, IL show last night...I live right down the road from the concert hall she played at and obviously had to go since I love her soo much! Here is a little set list from what I can remember: She started out with BEAUTY QUEEN/HORSES, then went right to BLOOD ROSES on the harpsichord, then she went into I'M ON FIRE by Bruce Springsteen. Next she played TEAR IN YOUR HAND, accompanied by guitarist Steve Caton. Then she talked about her friend Rantz, who crashed at her place recently and wanted to flush himself down the disposal because he was so depressed about getting kicked out of his house..it was a bit irrevelant but cute just the same. After that blurp she played PRECIOUS THINGS, then CORNFLAKE GIRL, then LITTLE AMSTERDAM, then I believe someone from the audience shouted "marry me Tori"..she replied "You don't wanna marry me, baby, all I can do for you is play at your wedding." ha! She then went into LITTLE EARTHQUAKES, followed by LANDSLIDE by Fleetwood Mac. Then, she played CAUGHT A LITE SNEEZE, followed by BUTTERFLY, followed by TALULA with a neat-o recorded drum back-up...then it was ME AND A GUN.

Tori left the stage, and after a rounding applause and hollers for an encore, she came back and did Joni Mitchell's CASE OF YOU, then PAST THE MISSION with Caton. She left again, and came back for a 2nd encore! She played HONEY (yay!), and a song I didn't recognize..I think it is entitled "Blue's on the Way", somebody from the audience requested it. Tori ignored my plea for "Upside Down" (waah!) and played HEY JUPITER as the finale. It was a spectacular show, much longer and more intimate then the first Tori show I saw in St. Louis. WIlly Porter, I might add, was great and cute as cute can be too.

Springfield, Illinois. July 27, 1996. My second Tori concert on this tour and my third overall. Prolly the best show I've ever seen, for reasons to be known in a moment. As with the St. Louis gig, Aimee The Magdelene was my concert companion for the day. She was to meet me at the hotel I was staying, and on arrival was forced to wait in the lobby for half an hour behind a line of people waiting for the computers to come back up before the desk clerk called me to say that she was there. I found her with a big ziplock bag full of homemade chocolate chip cookies (a gift for Tori), and she offered the frazzled desk clerk a cookie cause she looked like she needed one.

We had an uneventful lunch, and then went to the university around 4pm to wait for Tori to come in for soundcheck. (Note to RDT and Greg: Sangamon St. University is now the University of Illinois Springfield. They changed their name recently, adding to my confusion while trying to find the venue.) We met a girl already there waiting who we slowly discovered was MsSatan6, a fellow RMT-A'er and someone both me and Aimee have emailed.

Like clockwork, at about 5pm, the bus pulls up, and the roadie/security guy lines us up to meet and talk to her. (There were about 6 people waiting). So for the third time in my life (and in over a month), I met the goddess! She remembered me as being the guy at St. Louis who gave her the tape with my cover version of Crucify and some of my own songs, and she stated that she hadn't yet heard it cause she has a stack ( this big ) of tapes that fans have given her and that she'll listen to all of them at the end of the tour, and I went "Okay, that's cool." She asked me if I wanted her to play a particular song, cause she remembered that I asked her to play something at St. Louis, and she wrote on her hand my request for "Alamo". She then posed for a picture, and this time the camera I had worked! God I hope it turns out!

Then it was Aimee's turn. She gave Tori the bag of cookies, and Tori got excited over them! "Ohhh! Cookies!" Her security guy slyly suggested that they put them in the bus, to which Tori quickly and hillariously replied, "Ohhh no you won't!", fearing all the roadies would scarf them up. We got an answer to the pressing issue of peanut butter preference (crunchy or creamy), and I'll let Aimee fill you in on that. I then got a picture of Aimee with Tori, which will prolly be the most sought after GIF on the net! (Aimee, remember our deal: 50-50 split. ;) Then our newfound friend got her chance to meet the goddess and get a pic and an autograph.

The three of us went back to my motel room and had a little Toricon going on, then it was back to the venue at 6pm. MsSatan6 did not yet have a ticket for the concert, and only half the seats (3000 in all) have been sold. So while Aimee and I had our Mezzanine center seats (which were not bad cause we had a great view with binoculars), MsSatan6 casually walks up to the box office to get her single seat IN THE FRONT ROW OF THE ORCHESTRA PIT!

Very slowly the crowd of fans start to arrive (we were the first ones there). While waiting we were able to hear Tori's soundcheck; she must have sang "Peel out the Watchword" 12 times in a row. And what was funny was that all these elderly ladies and gentlemen in white shirts and blue pants/skirts who were the ushers for the night kept coming in to the lobby, and for a while they outnumbered the fans. And they all had to go to a certain room to meet cause they couldn't get into the auditorium during the soundcheck, and after a while we were the ones telling all the arriving oldsters where to go.

The three of us start to build a small crowd of anxious fans waiting to get in. We were crowned "Internet Tori Gurus" cause we were just amazing them with all our Tori knowledge and that we've met her. It was pretty funny, actually, to see these people hang on our every word. We finally were let in about 20 minutes to showtime.

Willie Porter again did an excellent opening set. He came out and tossed a bunch of band-aids stating that we might need them in case a pipe bomb goes off, and was almost pelted for that remark. His mic went out during as he was starting his Jackson 5 cover, and he had to do it unplugged. Aimee yelled for "Jesus On The Grill", and he complied, going "This is for the girl at the back that keeps going [high voice] 'Jesus On The Grill'".

Then around 9:15 Tori hit the stage and the magic began.

This was almost a completely different set from the one I saw just over a month before. She pulled out a lot of stuff I was (pleasantly) not expecting. Here's the setlist, and to the best of my memory, it's in order:

Beauty Queen/Horses
I'm On Fire

(greeting: Tori stating she's never been to Springfield Illinois before)

Blood Roses
Little Amsterdam
Butterfly

(intro to Caton)

Cornflake Girl (with the dance)
Little Earthquakes (Yes!! One of my all time faves, and I finally see her
play it!)

Mr Zebra
Tear In Your Hand

(story about how she doesn't do dishes and how Rantz wanted to kill
himself by going down her garbage disposal - she didn't have one)

Precious Things
(the Grrrl part was physically causing my throat to sore - it was a
fucking exorcism!)

Caught A Lite Sneeze
Talula
Landslide (beautiful!)

(somebody shouts a proposal, to which Tori grumbled "You don't want to
marry me. Trust me.")

Me And A Gun
(some people behind Aimee were talking during Gun, and she grabbed the
nearest guy's leg and made him rude gestures to shut the fuck up.)

End of main set - and thankfully the bastards behind Aimee leave.

ENCORE 1:
A Case Of You

Tori: "This is a request made earlier today. I've never played this live
before."

ALAMO (YES!! THANK YOU, TORI!! I LOVE YOU!!)

ENCORE 2:
screams of request from the audience

Whole Lotta Love/Past The Mission

Tori fucks up the end (I didn't notice) and starts giggling.
Tori (to Steve): "This girl's been screaming for this all night. Let's
do the one that should've been on 'Pink'."

Honey
Hey Jupiter

She was in top form! Farely chatty compared to St. Louis, and sang and played her heart out! The best show I've seen thus far!

i arrived in springfield saturday afternoon and got stuck in the endless loop around the UI campus for half an hour. when i finally made it out and to the hotel to meet JB, it turned out their computers were broken and i had to wait half an hour in the lobby before i could even find out if he'd checked in. i had made some cookies and brought them for tori, but the woman behind the counter was having such a bad day that i had to give her a few. so once we actually found each other, JB and i went to the shake'n'flake across the street for lunch and then went to the venue for the soundcheck.

there was one lonely person waiting for tori when we got there, and it turned out to be becky (aka MsSatan6). i gave her a cookie and we all introduced ourselves. we didn't realize we knew each other 'til i mentioned the ng and she asked my last name. she gave a very satisfying gasp for me. :) so we talked to some people who worked for the venue and gave them cookies and waited for tori. and of course we had to have some cookies ourselves.

by the time tori arrived, half the cookies were gone. :) she talked to JB first and said she hadn't had time to listen to his tape yet (he gave her a tape of his music including a cover of crucify back in STL) and that she had a giant stack of fan's tapes that she promised she would listen to. i took a pic of them with JB's camera, and then she moved on to me. i gave her the dozen or so cookies that were left and a matchbook from a lebanese restaurant in STL that i think she would enjoy. she really *effused* over the cookies, she gave them to her bodyguard to carry, and he smiled (yes, i SAW him smile) and said he'd put them on the bus. and she said, "oh NO you won't, those are going inside with me. inside. inside!" heh. and then i told her that i had a dumb question because rantz wouldn't answer it, and i asked her about PB. i think she recognized me from STL, because she was giving me this pitiful look the whole time i was talking like she was afraid i'd start babbling again. but she told me she's a creamy (dammit!) and told us a story about PB. she said the time she collapsed in wisconsin on the last tour and had to go to the hospital involved PB - it apparently got stuck partway down her esophagus. i somehow refrained from telling her that that's what happens when you eat creamy. ;) then JB took a pic of us and she moved on to becky. i don't know what happened after that except that becky got her orange promo book signed and JB took a pic of them as well. i was just too excited to pay attention, you know?

after that we went back to the hotel and fucked like bunnies. heh. just seeing if you were paying attention. no, we didn't fuck like bunnies or any other furry mammal. we sat around and talked until the box office opened up at 6, and then we headed back to the venue because becky didn't yet have a ticket. and despite the threats we made, JB and i did not kill her and take her orchestra pit seat (we were in the mezzanine). then we sat around the venue and talked to random people as they arrived. we met these 2 girls who looked about HS age who had never seen tori live and didn't know a lot of the juicy tidbits about tori, like YKTR and baltimore and the obscure singles and ATY. so we told them all this stuff and epxlained how to meet her if they get a chance to see more of her shows. we also met a couple who had seen some of the tori webpages but didn't know about r.m.t-a. we scolded them about learning to use usenet and gave them our e-dresses. the guy was like a jason clone - he said that he liked tori but the repitition got to him. loser. ;) and some guys who lurk here and have posted a few times came up to us and joined our little group. they were from champaign (as is becky), and i found out one of 'em is an RA at jason's old dorm. so i had to tell him about how we used to break onto the roof....during thunderstorms. heh.

so when the show started, right off the bat willy porter made fun of my voice. well, first he threw a big pile of bandaids into the pit, "because you never know when a pipe bomb is going to go off". everyone groaned and he apologized for that and anything else offensive he might do or say. i hollered for jesus on the grille during an opportune moment of silence. and he said his next song was a request from the girl in the back who shouted for....and then he did this cheesy falsetto "jesus on the grille". i told him he might as well, since he already apologized for it. ;) as usual, willy put on a great show.

ok, here's the really odd thing. about 10 minutes before tori came on, the LZ momentarily stopped and this guy in bikini briefs rode a bicycle across the stage. it was weird, but cool.

i'll leave it to someone else to give a full report of the show, but tori was really ON. she was improvising in everything and adding lyrics and baiscally kicking ass. naturally, i think it was my cookies. :) but there were these idiots behind us and about 2 seats over who decided to start talking during tear in your hand. they got louder during precious things, but they were far enough away from me that if i'd said anything to them it would only have made more noise. so instead i grabbed the guy's leg and wouldn't let go until i'd made some violent gesticulations. they calmed down for a while. but then they actually started whispering and giggling, GIGGLING!, during MAAG. i decided that i'd smash their heads in with JB's binoculars as soon as tori left the stage, but they sensed the impending doom and scooted out real fast. bastards. but toherwise, tori was really REALLY, i mean REALLY.....well, we all know what an awesome performer tori is, but this was the best show i've seen yet (this was my 5th). i felt like someone had punched me in the face afterwards. and i mean that in a good way.

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I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Cedar Rapids. I mean, it's in the middle of nowhere. Well, it's 30 miles north of I-80, and that puts you somewhere in Iowa, which means of course, it's in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, it turned out to be a nice town, and an even better venue.

I arrived around 5:30pm, and found the local Jacey's chapter was having a Friday night block party. I was with 3 other friends, and then met up with 2 others from Omaha (they were 21, and were taking advantage of their 2 free beers). They filled me in on some Tori-action that happened about a half-hour before I arrived.

Evidently, Tori did her talking and hugging before the sound check. One girl gave Tori a little green frog, and of course said his name was Jethro.

Anyway, after dining at a VERY American Chinese restaurant, we headed back to The Paramount.

The Paramount was a gorgeous theatre, which according to the lady at the front was built in the late 1890's, and seats (get this) nineteen-hundred and one. It was a very intimate place, very similar to the Midland Theatre in Kansas City. The walls were decorated with really great filligris and other froo-froo crap. But of course I wasn't there to see the decorations!

When Willie Porter came out, I didn't really know what to expect. In KC, I didn't bother going into the auditorium until he was done. But I'm glad I saw him this time. At one point in the very last song he played, I thought, this guy is the Tori of guitars.

The best part of Willie's performance was his composition of a song on the spot using the audience's suggested words before he started. And what an interesting mix that turned out to be. They were as follows: necrophelia; Bob Dole (at which point Willie said, "This song is beginning to sound like a career suicide."); squid; butthole; some girl from the audience asked to add her cat, he said "Perfect!"

Here's the words as best as I could figure out from the (gasp!) recording I managed to make.

Why couldn't I have been the guy who invented the Hubble/
Instead of the guy who's climbing in the dark with the shovel/
Diggin in the dirt, getting mud under my fingers/
Hopin that the post-mortum lingers/
Cause I loved you when you were alive/
Loved you know that you're gone/
And I loved you all night long/
And now I'm in jail.

And I'm not quite certain there will be anything left for me/
There won't be no respiration/
There won't be no frontal labotomy/
Just a bunch of muddy hands and an old graveyard/
And it occurs to me when the moon rises/
It's the finest hour/
Cause I loved you when you were alive/
And I love you now more that you're gone/
My sweet Ophelia/
My victim of necrophelia.

Charlie Manson wasn't really all that bad compared to me/
And ce-ra ce-ra/
He just murdered people for free/
And there's nobody in this land who's safe from me/
Oh with my self and my hand, I'm the baddest man you could ever see/
And I wonder what will become of our good buddy, Robert Dole/
And sometimes I worry about all the secrets that I know/
I bet he lays awake at night thinking about all the things he knows/
While I'm sittin there tryin not to keep too tight of a butthole/
Cause destiny is a cancer/
And that is what I've learned so far/
Though it's not cheatin if you're a television star/
Because of love Nancy Sinatra, and I love Richard Burton too/
And when they are both dead, there won't be no difference to me between the two/
Oh I loved you then/
And I love you know, my sweet Ophelia/
And I'll steal into the graveyard/
And get down to some necrophelia/

I'm from Milwaukee, does that mean I have to be like Jeffrey Dahmer/
And this song is pretty dark, and I think I might have committed sucide/
I can see in Cedar Rapids on the front page of the Town Crier/
"Willy Porter's not welcomed around here, and he better not comeback in
town, or he might die/
"And become a victim just like sweet Ophelia/
He might just be another victim of nec...
ROPHELIA" (from the audience).

He forgot the squid and the lady's cat.

He tried to introduce the next piece, and said, "Where can I go from there?" He then played "Fear" and ended with an instrumental.

After almost a full 30-minutes, Tori came out, dressed in blue jeans, a tight red top with a pink short shirt on top of it. The shoes were black and had thick heels.

Here's a quick list before I go into each song:

Beauty Queen/Horses
Silent All These Years
Blood Roses
Caught A Lite Sneeze
Cornflake Girl
Little Amsterdam
Pretty Good Year
Frog On My Toe
Mother
Precious Things
Love Song
Doughnut Song
Talula
Me And A Gun
** ENCORE 1
Angie
Putting The Damage On
** ENCORE 2
Father Lucifer
Etienne (on harmonium)

Beauty Queen/Horses -- She definitely added something fierce here. The bass-side of the Bosey really got a workout at the beginning; it sounded like the melody to a line I've heard her add to Doughnut Song, "she's on my side". She then hit the G and went into the pair of songs.

Silent All These Years -- Nothing too out-of-the-ordinary on this song, just beautifully done as usuall.

Then she spoke.

"Hi guys. Well, you know what, I'm glad you're very perky, because, uhm, we won't talk about where I've just been, but uhm, it wasn't as perky as you are. I've never played there before, so it was the very first time (gasp) and they're VERY Christian. I mean, very very very very. So, I understand one very. So you have to understand my father and my grandmother and my grandfather and my mother are very very very very. So, I think I know how to deal with very very very. Wrong. Anyway, they were not ready for a dose of Tori, it wasn't a good way to start out. You gotta imagine. What are you doing? Why did I play Crucify, Mohammad, Father Lucifer all in one set?"

Blood Roses -- I need to get a harpsichord. Yeah, right after the imperial grand Bosey!

Caught A Lite Sneeze -- I love the way she switches mics before the final verse. I assume she's done that throughout the tour, as she did it in KC in June and on Unplugged.

"So uhm, some of you know that this is Caton. And, uhm, OH! WOOF! (to some guy in the front). Caton and I were in Y Kant Tori Read together. So, uhm, do any of you know, like, uhm, the metal forever handshake? Like, no matter how uncool it is anymore, all that hairspray and the Rainbow and the Roxie, you remember those clubs? Well, that was our life. Wasn't it, Caton? It really happened. Do you know the handshake? Have I done it to you? "

She then did an interesting two-part signal thing with her left hand near the floor and then the right hand near her head. It's kinda hard to describe.

Cornflake Girl -- Yes, with the Tori-dance. She almost came right up to the front row. And I must admit, I do like this take on it, without the backing tracks. Caton's guitar at the beginning definitely helps things out.

Little Amsterdam -- An interesting twist she adds to the verse "father only you can save my soul/playin that organ must count for something." Definitely intense, hanging on to "something" like she does with "girl" in Precious Things, though not as long.

Pretty Good Year -- At the "Hey, what's it gonna take till my baby's alright" things got wild. Two bright yellow lights were behind her, and were projected out to the audience, while Caton strummed some hard chords and she belted out a strong dose of singing. I still can feel tingles.

"Some of you know this, and that's a fact [referring to the girl who gave her the frog]. Uhm, I really like margaritas now. And, uhm, there's a time and a place for them. I'm aware of it."

Realizing there was some margarita mix in the trunk of the car, I yelled out, "I have some in the car for ya" (three times before she heard it.

"You have some in the car?"

Yes.

"What's your name? Oh, but I gotta do this first, because this is what happens. This song is an example of what happens."

She then tries to sing a few notes, way off key, hitting the right note on the piano to match.

"Can I have another sip?"

Then finally gets on key. "That's what happens. Anyway, this little song happened, and it doesn't realy make a lot of sense."

Then begins to sing Frog On My Toe.

Mother -- A personal favorite. Glad she did this one.

Precious Things -- Wow. I know some people differ on when she goes into her "grrrrl" tangent, but I love it. This time she held on for almost right at 26 seconds, two seconds better than Kansas City. I got chills again when she began almost screaming "let them wash them clean/these precious things/let them bleed/wash this thing daddy."

"Some of you may remeber this song, if you don't, God you know how old I am, but anyway."

Someone yells, I love you Tori.

"Sssaank you. I like to, uhm, speed to this song. Cause, you know that thing that says '55?' Heh! I know it's a saftey thing, eh eh, politcally correct..eh! (and flips us off) But, if you're not drinking, and there's nobody else behind you, it's like, mothers, stay home with your children, just let me roll with Shumacher (?) and those dudes for ten fucking minutes."

This all leads up to Love Song. The roller-coaster 'movie' in the background is amusing.

Doughnut Song -- While I love the song, I guess I feel as if her performance of this song on "120 Minutes" from MTV was the best she's ever done of it, and I just don't get as much satisfaction from hearing it live because of that. :/

Talula -- Complete with the beginning "He's chasing tornados" bit, which she did twice, I assume to get the effect of the bouncing reverb from left to right, which didn't quite happen right the first time. Excellent, even with the backing tracks. It seemed like a disco dance floor there for a minute, with the lights going and the bass pumping.

Me And A Gun -- The audience was GREAT with this. After the intial claps of acknowledgement, you could hear a pin drop.

ENCORE 1

Angie -- Excellent. Another favorite. I really like the rising pitch she does, similar to the near-end of Yes, Anastasia.

Putting The Damage On -- Wonderful. Introduced by another dark atonal chord "ditty."

In the middle of the song, I asked the girl infront of me if I could borrow her binoculars. I noticed the set list on the floor, and could read it from there. Looks like we were going to hear Father Lucifer and Mr. Zebra.

ENCORE 2

I stayed seated while other people got up to leave. I knew she was coming back out. I didn't think a second encore was very unusual anyway.

She came back, sat down, said, "Okay, dudes" to us, then waved bye to the harpsichord, which they rolled away before she sang, and replaced it with the harmonium.

Father Lucifer -- I really like this one live, although I do enjoy the three- or four-Tori voices singing on the album version.

"Okay, who says I never listen to you guys?"

Etienne -- What a great surprise. This is my favorite song from YKTR. I'm guessing someone asked her before she went into sound check to do that one.

She waved her usual cute wave, and was gone.

After waiting a few minutes outside the theatre, I ran over to the car and grabbed the margarita and the "Tori Covered" t-shirt I had for her. Unfortunately, the goons had the "crowd-control" bars at a 90-degree angle to the bus, which meant only the people at the fron were going to see her. I thought of yelling "MARGARITA!" but she was on the bus too soon. Instead, after the bus was gone, I wrote a note on an envelope I had in my pocket and gave it along with the margarita and the shirt to one of the roadies. He said he'd give it to her in the morning. Guess I won't know :( But I'm sure someone will have a good time with the drinks. The only bad part of the show was the 6-hour drive home to Nebraska.

A bad review by a clueless reviewer for the Cedar Rapids Gazette sent to me by Tori fan Cindy Elder

Cedar Rapids Gazette, July 27, 1996

Roll over, Beethoven, Tori Amos has discovered the harpsichord, and the instrument will never be the same.

Amos, the Gen X queen of quirk, proved once again she is a truly gifted musician, as a sold-out college crowd writhed along with her at the Paramount Theatre last night.

Nearly everything about her keyboard and vocal technique is wrong, but somehow, with her fierce energy and sensuous delivery, she makes it seem right. She sits sideways on the piano bench, grinding it between her legs as she alternately whispers, shouts and groans her odd lyrics while grandly dramatic lights sweep across her body.

One moment she's the classical pianist; the next, she's just bizarre, looking every inch the grunge princess. Her songs have a sameness that makes one melody weave seamlessly into another, which can edge toward boring. Yet through it all, her devoted fans adore her and shower her with rapt attention followed by thunderous ovation. They love everything she does.

A child prodigy on the piano, Amos went to a prestigious conservatory at age 5. She learned her instrument well, but totally deviates in the way she attacks it. I can overlook her horrible posture, because she can evoke such beauty in spite of it. But her wispy, breathy vocals … which seemed oddly interesting in the beginning … got really grating after an hour and a half.

I couldn't wait for the concert to be over. Not because she isn't an innovative performer, but because the constant whispers and audible inhale/exhale became so annoying.

She has a gutsy, belting voice that tears loose every so often, shattering the hypnosis with jarring drama. That's when she's most interesting … when she catches you off guard.

Willy Porter opened the concert with fabulous fingerpicking and experimental guitar sounds. His 30-minute set was pure joy.

Copyright 1996, The Cedar Rapids Gazette

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I have the setlists for you from the 2 Boise, Idaho shows. Great web page by the way, perfect for us fanatics. E-mail me for Torispondence.

1st show Morrison Performing Arts Center @ 7:00

Beauty Queen/ Horses
Leather
Blood Roses
Little Amsterdam*
Cornflake Girl*
Doughnut Song*
Pretty Good Year*
Frog On My Toe
Winter
Precious Things
Caught A Lite Sneeze*
Talula*(Tornado mix w/ backing loops)
Me And A Gun

Landslide (Fleetwood Mac cover)
Twinkle

Tear In Your Hand*
Song For Eric!!! (I was amazed she even did this)

*indicates w/ Steve Caton on guitar
spaces indicate encores


2nd SHOW Morrison Performing Arts Center @ 10:00 p.m.

Beauty Queen/ Horses
London Girls (with backing effects)
Bells For Her (harpsichord)
Butterfly*
Space Dog*
In The Springtime Of His Voodoo*
Honey*
Putting The Damage On
Graveyard!
Crucify
(story about her going to church on Christmas with her family 2 years
ago and how she told her father to f*** off when he asked her to join
in and sing the hymns. She said "Nobody will like what I have to say
if I sing" and her father said "Try me" then she breaks into:
Muhammed My Friend
Talula* (Tornado Mix with backing loops)
Me And A Gun

Silent All These Years
Here In My Head

Mr. Zebra
Hey Jupiter* (harmonium)

*indicates songs with Steve Caton on guitar
spaces indicate encores

I believe this was the first time she played Graveyard live. You would know better than I since I haven't looked at all of the setlists. My friend in Salt Lake requested it at the meet and greet in SLC and Tori said she'd never done it live before. My friend then met Tori again at the Boise shows and said that Tori never played it at the SLC shows so she played it for us then. Other people in the line had already requested it cause it was written on her hand once I got to meet her. She played Landslide as a request of my friend Tiffany. These 2 shows put her Salt Lake shows to shame....

The Boise shows did not feature the backing minifilms nor the screen. It didn't matter though.

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Note From Mikewhy: This is long but worth the read I assure you :)

This is quite long, but I don't post too often, and it's all Tori content. So there.

Although I've seen ten more shows since my last review, (Pittsburgh, May 30), I haven't had much time to be able to write about them, as being on the road has itself proven to be time consuming. I doubt most people here want to see me do full reviews of ten more shows anyway, so I'll just do this one for the incredible night in Portland, Oregon. Maybe I'll post some general thoughts another time.

These were my shows 17 and 18 of this tour, and Tori rose above technical problems to pull out two first class shows an hour apart from one another. For me, these shows were only possible in Portland, as the girl energy there was the most intense and self-assured of any of the ten cities in which I've seen shows.

There was plenty of girl power in San Jose, but it was a completely different kind of thing. It was more of a "we got plenty of lip gloss and blue toenails and are hanging out with our friends" kind of energy, whereas in Portland it was more of a "we're pretty much in control of reality here, and you're welcome to be here with us for a while, just as long as you don't mind us sitting in one another's laps and drinking coffee while we talk." Much more the quieter expressions of confidence that come with having *real* power. I loved it a whole lot! I like nothing more than to be where there is a culture of mutual support for women where they feel comfortable enough to simply be themselves, and I know Tori had to pick up on this, and that it helped her to come up with two quality shows as she did. As the T-shirt says, "girls kick ass." :-)

At the third show in Seattle, in between songs, some guy in the audience yelled out "More pirate!" Tori tried to get the guy to explain what he meant, and he would only elaborate by saying "More pirate, less pen!" This did nothing but frustrate her, and she told him, "Listen, *you* do seven fucking shows a week, and *you* can do `more pirate less pen'!"

But the phrase obviously stuck in her head, as she turned it into a vocal vamp during Horses here at the first show in Portland. I expect those not at the Seattle show wondered what she was on about. If they managed to understand the words, anyway.

I noticed right away that the lighting was different from the other shows, and after Space Dog, Tori explained that there were problems. She told us that there were usually "movies" on a projection screen as part of her show, and that it was kind of like doing mushrooms. She said, "I don't care who's here, I love mushrooms. People have been doing them for thousands of years, and for anyone who has a hair up their butt about it that's just too bad. And for any police who may be in the house: you won't find shit. That's the good thing about being very good friends with the faeries--you don't get caught." That isn't all exact quoting, but is pretty close.

As it turned out, she provided more than enough mushrooms for everyone there that night. In fact, after the first show I told house sound engineer Mark Hawley that if this is what we got when the movies were broken, that he should tell Tori from me to THROW THE MOVIES AWAY! The show was on par with the best shows in Oakland, Seattle, Pittsburgh, and D.C.

Anyhow, Tori then went on to introduce Caton. She said that she loved Caton, and that Caton cried at anything. That on eating guacamole, he would sob "This is such *great* guacamole." He just sits there and blushes when she says such things. I expect he's well used to it by now. :-)

He really is a sweetheart. And he adds a lot to the shows. I'm glad he's with her on this tour. He can follow her rhythm and style changes on the fly in ways no full band ever could, while always enriching the sound tremendously when he plays, which is for about 40% of the show. I can't say enough good about him, and can say nothing bad. Gotta love the guy.

Some nights she's been doing this mini pastiche of Marianne which includes lyric snippets as an intro to Doughnut Song, and she did a micro one for this first Portland show, but without vocalizing. Only with the piano. This kind of thing makes it quite difficult to even do proper set lists, as since she's been tossing in references from multiple songs, some of the true flavor of the set list is going to be lost.

I mean, she's been tossing a verse of Day By Day from the early 1970s musical Godspell into the middle of Little Amsterdam, (first that I saw in Oakland, where there were posters for a local theater production of it), and quoting from the score of The Wizard of Oz--the incidental music written by Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly, which was used when the witch's guards were marching into the castle--as an introduction to Crucify, as she did for the second show in Seattle.

She's been doing much more of this kind of thing as the tour's been progressing, which says to me that she's still finding ways to make this tour interesting for herself and have it remain a learning process. The songs truly are living organisms, and I can certainly see why she refers to them as girls. Beautiful girls, they are.

For the first encore set she did Landslide, which she said was "...for someone who was supposed to be here tonight, but didn't quite make it." Rather cryptic, but later on in the second show it seemed to be that she was referring to something a woman in attendance had told her in the afternoon. But I didn't hear what she was saying about that.

After Landslide, she then went right into Marianne. It was the most intense, emotion-filled version I'd heard her do on the tour. I was on the floor about halfway back, and there was a fellow a couple or so rows behind me who was crying quite loudly, and I was soon a total mass of tears myself. I doubt I'd ever cried that much before in public. It was devastating. She kept pounding and pounding the keys and singing louder and louder on some passages, and it still reverberates in my head and in my heart.

"It's only a concert." That's what a friend of mine told me she said to herself when she first cried at a Tori concert. Yeah--right.

When she and Caton came back for the second encore, they couldn't do the song they'd intended, as Caton's pedal was busted, so instead of (I was fully expecting it to be) Voodoo, we had to make do with Honey. Awww! ;-)

The other comment I want to make about this first Portland show is that the version of Silent All These Years was the richest, most heartfelt I'd ever experienced. Wow.

It was during the hour between shows that I came to be awash in the girl power energy in the city, as many people were hanging out in the Starbucks down the street, which was still somewhat in recovery mode on the heels of a visit from Tori earlier that afternoon. I had to find out why this energy was flourishing there in Portland, and I asked one person after another about it, but they all pleaded ignorance due to geography. "We live an hour from here. We don't know."

It wasn't until later back in Seattle when John Stewart mentioned that the Riot Grrrl movement had been born at Evergreen College just north of there in Olympia. I still wonder what spawned *that*, but that at least served as a partial explanation. It really was quite extraordinary.

One dear, sweet 16-year-old girl from the nearby Portland suburbs answered me, to my question wondering why there was so much amazing girl power energy in Portland: "Because it's great." Would that that worked everywhere *else*.

The second show was as much a continuation of the first as if it were one concert as any I'd experienced on this tour. I know some of us had made it clear to Tori that we were going to many shows, (in Seattle I told her she was like my new Grateful Dead, which she thought was hilarious), and she seems to be more aware of all the people going to multiple shows in a given area, and has responded by providing an increasingly wide variety of repertoire. I love that woman. :-)

The second show this night had Tori doing something else she's been doing some nights on this tour--toying with specialized introductions to Crucify. This time she did a vocal vamp "Come on, girls" which I didn't specifically recognize as being a quote from another source, but in retrospect, (and considering the excerpt of Madonna's Like a Virgin she quoted as one portion of a musical introduction to Crucify for the middle show in Oakland), it occurs to me that she may have had in mind Madonna's song Express Yourself, which has the phrase "Come on, girls" as its opening vocal. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes for endless fascination with Tori. I am continually astonished.

She also did a specialized musical introduction for Pretty Good Year, and I didn't recognize it either, and therefore can't be certain that it wasn't quoted from another source, rather than having been extemporized. My notes tell me it had a vocal refrain of "Will I still love you?" in it.

Caton managed to have his pedal back for this second show, and we were finally treated to Voodoo. It's always a high point of the show when performed, as it allows for the greatest musical dialogue between the two of them, and it's grown to be a rich contrapuntal experience--much different than earlier on in the tour when it was more of a guitar solo.

Following that, Tori said "I really want to play this next song, but I don't play it very often, so if I fuck up, I'll start it over again." She didn't fuck up, and we were listening with our jaws on the floor as she performed Mary. It was my first time ever, and on the way out west in the car the first day, while in Ohio, I'd drawn up an ultimate wish list of songs I wanted to hear her do, and this was the final of the six there was any chance at all of her doing, so I was able to cross it off the list. I'd previously been able to cross off Tiny Dancer on Seattle. I had no idea she was ever playing that these days, I only knew she used to play it in the clubs in D.C. back in the early 1980s, but I've since gone over the set lists and see that she played it twice so far on this tour. That was a real treat, too. Maleen's theory about using telepathy to place song requests has always worked great for me in the past, and continued to work great in this show.

After Mary, Tori told this story she's been telling about being back home with her folks at Christmastime in one recent year, and her dad imploring her to join in singing hymns with the choir; a story which she'd recounted for the second Oakland show, and which leads into Muhammad My Friend.

Then things started to get *really* weird. She never finished Precious Things, but segued into a variation of Doughnut Song as a bridge, singing the lyric "devoted satellite" and other brief lyric excerpts from it, and then went into a complete version of the Beatles song She's Leaving Home. Again, I expect the jaws of many others there were once again on the floor, as was mine.

She was really into working at this point, and going with the flow that was underway, but wanted to point out that she *was* working hard this special night, (there must be some weird laws in Portland that didn't allow her to have the typical 3 1/2 hours between start times for a twofer, and which forced her to have but a single hour to rest between shows), and she said she was "...going to go back to the bus after the show and watch an Alfred Hitchcock movie, and any boys who `want some' will have to wait till tomorrow." I expect there was *one* boy in the hall that night who turned bright red when she said that.

And as she turned to the harpsichord for the song she was to perform before Me and a Gun, (either Talula or Caught a Lite Sneeze), a woman from the audience yelled a request for Putting the Damage On, and she yanked off the monitor headset she wears when she plays the harpsichord and said that she was going to show how easy to get along with she could be, and turned back to the piano and filled the request. After that, she and Caton played Tear In Your Hand, and went offstage.

For the first time, she'd skipped Me and a Gun. As she's sworn to herself that if she ever performs two or more songs live, that one of them will be MaaG, I'm sure she was just taken up in the uniqueness of the night's entire proceedings, and figured it was close enough to being one show rather than two anyway, and I'll be quite shocked if she skips MaaG for any of the other shows on the tour.

You can check the set list for the surprising final four encore songs, but the last thing I had to mention about this show was the Tubular Bells motif she tossed into Father Lucifer, as she'd also been doing recently in other shows.

The experience of this night took my breath away. It was the best of all possible ways for my western foray to have drawn to a close. I flew from Seattle back to Maryland two nights later. I have yet to turn on the stereo in the car since this night, as I can easily conjure up the sounds still bouncing about inside my head from this journey. And it's quite lovely.

I can barely wait for the Chattanooga show on August 4. :-)

Tori Amos Forever.

july 21st was simply an amazing day in portland, beautiful weather, and tori! i was there from virginia visiting a friend so i was a bit worried about seeing the shows alone, however i was able to meet up with "polar bear" from the usenet group, i love my 'puter. anyways, i got there around 3:30 and saw caton riding around on his bike. feeling bold, i went up to chat with him, saying how i'd talked to him at the shows in d.c. back in april. he's so friendly. finally tori came out so i jumped back into line. i didn't think i'd see her before the show so i had a note with a request for her to play 'mary' in richmond next month. (that song just hits me, ya know, right in the heart, bammm, but i've never heard it live). she glanced at the note and saw it and said "did you want to hear it in richmond, or would you rather hear it tonight?" i said either or, or both would be great. so she took my pen and wrote "mary" on the back of her hand and gave me a hug.

i had some time to kill so i went wandering in search of postcards, then what do i see driving down the road, but an old PINK MUSTANG!! (lyric reference: i wanna get you outta here, you can ride in a pink mustang, when i think of what we've done to you - mary...). i freaked, and i knew that mary would be there that night.

so, now to the set lists, i saw some discrepencies between mine and others already posted, but i worked hard to make mine as correct and in order as possible.

FIRST SHOW

beauty queen/horses
flying dutchman (standing and playing almost the whole song)
spacedog

(mention that films are broken, and the quote regarding mushrooms and
the police was "...raid me, you'll never find shit.")

caught a lite sneeze

(she mentions that caton cries a lot, even over guaccomole)

cornflake girl (with an amazingly energetic little dance)
doughnut song
leather
silent all these years
precious things (with a brief alternate lyric of "do-re-mi")
smells like teen spirit
graveyard
past the mission
talula (bt)
me and a gun (the best, so quiet)
-
landslide (for someone)
marianne
-
honey
mr. zebra
(mentions again how everything seems to be breaking, and tells caton
that he can join in on this one if he wants, i guess it wasn't planned.)

purple rain

SECOND SHOW

beauty queen/horses

'come on girls, let's put the boys on the floor'

crucify
blood roses

little amsterdam
butterfly (wow)

'i still love you like i said'...

pretty good year
in the springtime of his voodoo (yells to the sound guy to turn her
piano up)

*(she plays a few notes, then says "i don't usually do this, so
i hope i don't fuck it up) - [i then knew, and screamed 'thank you']

MARY
(story about being at her dad's church on christmas with all the kids
and overindulgent moms, and how he wanted her to sing, but she whines
that this is her break, she's played 200 shows, and that he wouldn't
want to hear how she'd sing the song)

muhammed my friend
precious things (piano only, no switch to the harpsicord after grrrrl)
she's leaving home (wow)

(she turns to the harpsicord when someone yells 'putting the damage on'
so she says "ok", then turns back to the piano, this of course followed
by more requests, but she said she'd do this, then see where it goes)

putting the damage on
tear in your hand
-
famous blue raincoat (wow)
black swan
-
father lucifer
(says, this next one is for a girl who asked for two, but they'd
completly wear her out - kinda like playing some sort of sport (i
forget) then going home and being expected to have sex...)

bells for her

that was it, it was all over. polar bear and i waited outside for awhile, but we were too far back in the crowd to see tori again, she didn't stay very long. but caton was out on his bike again so we chatted for awhile. he mentioned how the next time they had a few days off everyone was going to chicago, but he was going somewhere (brain fart) to work with eric (rosse i assume) on an album for some new australian girl (he didn't know her name). then, i asked him if he'd thank tori for me for playing Mary, and the whole mustang story, he said 'was it a convertable?' i said yes it was he said "wow". then it was time to go home, full and satisfied even though i hadn't eaten anything all day.

planes, trains, and tori shows,

Lisa St.

FAERIES GIVE TORI AMOS A HELPING HAND
The singer, songwriter and power pianist is her strange and spirited self
in Sunday shows
by Marty Hughley of the Oregonian staff
Oregonian, 7/22
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Early in the first of two Sunday night concerts in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Tori Amos offhandedly declared her love for mushrooms. The implication was that she meant the psychoactive kind, yet she warned the theater's security guards they would find nothing if they searched her.

"That's the good thing about being very good friends with faeries," she explained. "You don't get caught."

Well, OK. That makes sense. Sort of.

Actually, what's good about a close relationship with the paranormal, the magical, the spiritual, the what-have-you, is that somewhere in those realms of ether and ideals, the Muses are smiling on Tori Amos.

If we're to take her at her word, Amos writes her songs mostly by ch

annelling various spirits - and we're not talking about the distilled kind. What we are talking about is a body of powerful, psychologically involved songs that, along with Amos' tractor-beam personality, makes for one of the most distinctive creative personas in contemporary pop music.

Amos performed for almost two hours in her sold-out opening show Sunday. Though she explained that various parts of the presentation (films, etc.) weren't working, her simple set-up was more than enough to hold the audience in rapt attention, the crowd's absorbing silence broken only by the occasional scream of support.

Amos accompanies herself on a stately Bosendorfer grand piano, sometimes swiveling to the other side of her bench to play an antique harpsichord.

In a departure from previous tours, she was joined on about a third of the songs by guitarist Steve Caton, who played with Amos in her detestable '80s metal band, Y Kant Tori Read.

But her performance approach is not so much unplugged as unmediated. She proffers an intimacy so intense it can sometimes be as uncomfortable as it is compelling.

In her opening tune, "Horses," a Leslie cabinet gave the piano a watery, organ-like sound while Amos sang of fleeing from demons.

The a cappella rape song, "Me and a Gun," came across not just as harrowing personal narrative and scathing social indictment but also as an act of bravery to perform in front of thousands of people.

Taking Amos at her word, however, probably should include believing her about the mushrooms. Her mannerisms, both physical and musical, can be extreme and inexplicable.

Jerking this way and that atop her piano-bench perch, kicking her feet spasmodically, veering from tender breathiness to anguished howls, changing tempo with every other phrase - all these were very effective communication at times.

But they also could seem like silly self-indulgences, as in covers of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Prince's "Purple Rain." Yet overall, even excess works well in Amos' artistry.

Must be the faeries helping out.

I just got back from the 2 Portland shows. Whoah! Tori performed only three songs in both concerts (Beauty Queen, Horses and Precious Things).

We got Silent All these Years, Tear in Your Hand, Crucify, Leather, Me and a Gun, Mother, Pretty Good Year, Past the Mission, Space Dog, Cornflake Girl, Father Lucifer, Mr Zebra, Marianne, Caught a Lite Sneeze, Muhammad My Friend, Little Amsterdam, Talula, Doughnut Song, In the Springtime of His Voodoo, Putting the Damage On, Mary, Black Swan, Daisy Dead Petal, Landslide, Smells Like Team Spirit, and the piece de la resistance - Purple Rain on the harmonium with Caton accompanying.

The audience was actually quite good most of the time. It was one of the best 3 1/2 hour concerts (effectively) I've ever been to.

Note From Mikewhy: I am not certain that Daisy Dead Petals was really played!

i took my mom with me to see the second show, so she could see for herself what i'd been raving about. anyway, after the show i asked her what she thought, and she said: 'she's definetly a genius. she's the janis joplin of your time, but without the drugs' (she missed the mushrooms comment made at the first concert). that is definetly a compliment. while my mom doesn't love tori or have the desire to listen to her music, she definitely recognizes the talent behind tori.

Wow. It was amazing. She is talking to the crowd again, this time about 'shrooms, thier beauty and power, trying to talk some sanity into the police. I belive that she was heard... Hope so anyhow.

Horses
Flying Dutchman (some new words, beautiful)
Space Dog
'shroom chat
Cornflake Girl
Silent All These Years
Donut Song
Leather
Precious Things (some new words, additions dealing with abuse issues)
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Past The Mission
Tallula (Wow! If she ever chooses to keep a baby, Dragon Mother Rules!)
Me And A Gun
Landslide (dedicated to someone who... couldn't make it last night)
Thoughts
Purple Rain
(illegible entries, two songs)

Sorry, I mucked up the entries, it is hard to write in the dark. Equally, I may have them in scrambled order. Written on the forearm you know. That's what I get for not bringing paper.

Okay, let's get it over with. Troubles. Her magnificent Dear Old Lady harpsicord wasn't able to keep up and went to bed early. The sounds she *did* create while awake were outstanding. Tori, showing more than a little pluck and inventiveness, used an old bellows-type organ, firmly coaxing _Purple Rain_ out of it. The light people were out of touch with the show at that point, bathing us in turquoise and yellow throughout that song. Oh well.

The lasers died haflway through the performance, so we didn't get to see "this really cool movie-type thing". No biggie for me, as I'd have been content with raw flourecent lighting, but she seemed discomfited and more than a little annoyed.

_MaaG_ was astounding. The audience was totally silent. The response from the crowd was more than respectful, moving far beyond any silence I've ever experienced in a crowd. She had been dealing with abuse issues earlier in _Precious Things_, this song was very hard for her and us with that as a preface. She kept looking at me as her voice slowed, got softer, her will alone bringing her through to the end. A connection happened then inside of me, with her, with the people around me, one that I can't go into here as it is too personal. She rose, left the stage, the crowd exploding, pulling herself back together and returning in a shorter time than I thought possible. I will remember those moments as long as I live.

*sigh* so here i am sitting in my robe recovering from a wonderfullll sunday (and nursing a sore throat...) yesterday was the tori concert in portland and i haven't had so much fun in months. i went with my boyfriend and two of my friends. we got there early, ~3pm, so that i could try to catch her before her soundcheck. my bf waited with me in line. it was actually very organized; i'd been afraid of a teeming, seething mass of crazed toriphiles swelling through the street chanting her name (hm, that sounds kind of exciting actually)...but everyone lined up nicely outside the stage entrance. she came out of her bus and stood by the door, and we all trooped by and got signatures/pictures. i got my little earthquakes cd booklet signed, and she hugged me.

she's SO CUTE in person, which such beautiful eyes...and she's just as short as i am! i think she was even wearing the earrings people have talked about in previous threads...little silver circles dangling from small hoops?

anyway, after that excitement, we still had a few hours until the concert (we attended the 6:30 show, btw) so my bf and i went and got married at the church of elvis ("it's cheap, not legal"). if you're ever in portland i recommend this experience. i made him wear the sequined veil for the polaroid shot, and after the ceremony they give you a huge cheesy yellow sign that says "JUST MARRIED AT THE 24-HOUR CHURCH OF ELVIS" and a tin can on a string, so you can run around the block and make fools of yourselves. most of the people we passed were frightened and didn't even smile when i said hello :(

anyway, the concert itself was splendid. i'd never been to a tori concert before so i didn't really know what to expect. it was so surreal and emotional...i can't imagine how she puts out all that energy each night! i was exhausted just from listening to her. my two friends who came along hadn't been too excited about the entire thing, but they were raving afterwards about how intense and talented she was - woohoo, they've been converted!

sorry i didn't capture a setlist, though... :( if someone did would you mind posting it or sending it to me? i do remember a few introductions she made.

* she described her harpsichord as "her friend" and said that even though she was old and had wrinkles, "she'll make you...mmm, mmm"

* before CALS, she stopped to explain "we usually have these videos of mushrooms, but they're broken today...i don't care who's out there, i like mushrooms as much as anyone. if there are any cops out there, go ahead and search me, you won't find shit!...people have been doing them for thousands of years, i don't know why people have something up their butt about them...anyway, the idea is that we have these videos of mushrooms so that you don't need them, but since we don't have them, i hope you have some" ...a speech that garnered great cheers from the audience :)

* before Landslide in the 1st encore, "this song is for someone who was supposed to be here tonight but didn't quite make it..."

and the grand finale, on Hammond organ, was Purple Rain! woohoo!

anyway, i was very impressed with the entire experience. the schnitzer is a great concert hall, and the audience was VERY well-behaved, screaming and cheering at appropriate times, dead silent during MAAG.

sorry for all the rambling, but my boyfriend went back to corvallis after the concert last night, and it was quite an emotional crash (he works down there whilst i work in portland during the summers...sigh). hope you all have fluffy great tori-experiences too....she's such an amazing lady!

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OK - I wanted to write this down while it was still fresh in my memory....

I just got back from seeing my second tori amos concert. It was tonight (well, it's now the 20th - so it was last night) July 19th..... in Vancouver, Canada. I saw her back in montreal in may, and I thought nothing could beat that experience - but this did BY FAR!

First of all, I went downtown at 3:00, and got there by about 3:45 and waited by the stage door for tori. They said that she would be arriving in her limo between 4:00 and 4:30 and would go do her sound-check and then come back out to talk to us.... as it turned out she was late and didn't get there till 5:00 and she stopped to talk to us right away. There were about 20 of us waiting, and I was 4th in line.... I almost fainted when she walked out of the limo - she looked so great!!! When it came my turn to talk to her I was SO excited I could barely breathe! I gave her a tape I had made for her (of me playing) and she said 'thank you very much for this - you're a sweetheart!' I was sooo happy - I asked her if she found a few moments in the concert if she could play my FAVORITE song 'Sister Janet' on the Organ, and she said she would try to, and she wrote it down on her hand... she autographed my Limited Edition CALS cd, and that was it - I had met tori!!! It was so great....

Ok, so the concert was great - she played everythings flawlessly, and beautifully - the main set was pretty basic (No B-sides or covers) and it wasn't till the encores when it got interesting.... here is what she played....

Beauty Queen - with the little intro
Horses - Marvelous, as always
Yes Anastasia - I LOVED IT - she stared at the 1919 part
Blood Roses - One of my favorites.... she really belted out the GOD
KNOWS part

Little Amsterdam - Not as intense as she usually plays it live, her and
steve were off a bit

Cornflake Girl - Really good; complete with the 2 minute tori crazy
woman dance

Doughnut Song - With the 'It's over, over your shoulder' intro
Pretty Good Year - Intense 'heyeeyayeeyayeeyay' part
China - Very nice, solo piano
Prescious things - with the twenty six second Grrrrl, and some growling
at the end wash this Thing!!! Wash this thing!!!

Leather - I thought she would have played it earlier
Caught A Lite Sneeze - with piano banging
Talula - was very good up untill the drums came on and tori had to stop
at the ran into the henchman part, because she couldn't hear.... she had a big
story following tho

Happy Phantom - Her and steve were about to play something (I think
Father Lucifer judging by her little opening story) but some
audiance member kept screaming it out so she played it.

Me And A Gun - Very sad and intense.... I think Tori was crying, tho she
sang beautifully.

-----------Encore One------------
Putting the Dammage on - This was good, but it's not one of my favorites

A Case Of You - I was SOOOO happy that she played this - it was so
beautifull!

-----------Encore Two------------
Butterfly - another pleasant surprise, but a lot of the audiance didn't
recognize it

Tear in your Hand - Beautifull. Another favorite....
and Finally......

SISTER JANET - on harmonium organ!

I couldn't belive that she played the song I had requested, and not only that - she ditched Hey Jupiter, and used it to close the show.... it was the most beautifull thing I had ever heard... it was 1000 times better on the Harmonium, and it was so nice of her to play it JUST FOR ME! After it was over I screamed out - Thank you tori, and she gave me a little wave, and that was it. I think steve was a little upset because they rolled the organ out and tori and steve played Butterfly and Tear in your hand together..... and then steve went to get his guitar to play hey jupiter, but tori decided to play sister janet instead.

I think that tori is the nicest person I have ever met.... she did not let her sucsess and fortune go to her head, but instead she did one little thing, and totally made my summer! It was so rad!

As for the audiance, they were kind of non-responsive - tori was doing all this cool stuff and nobody was cheering! I was, and if I clapped loud enough a few people joined in, so I felt kind of bad for tori - but at least they weren't rude, and booed or something.

It was such a cool day.... and such a cool show; and it was so nice of tori to play sister janet for me.... I didn't think she would, but she did..... and I had my little moment of happiness!

MIKEWHY'S note: This reviewer really sucks. I can't say it any more diplomatically than that.

Even a mesmerizing light show couldn't illuminate Amos' appeal
TORI AMOS
Orpheum July 19
KATHERINE MONK
Sun Pop Music Critic

Wouldn't it be nice to be as convinced of Tori Amos' talent as Tori Amos is? That way. we could suspend disbelief for a good hour and fall under her arty spell, lingering over her cryptic prose, without feeling compelled to un- derstand exactly what it is she's actually doing up there.

Clearly, some people in the sold-out house Fri- day night puffed up enough to reach her helium highs: Amos received a solid standing ovation after her precocious - and irritatingly repetitious - plinkety-plinks on piano, harpsichord and Ham- mond.

Several of her avid fans threw roses. Many more simply screamed in ear-piercing tones: "TORI! we LOVE you! TORI!!!"

Why Amos has gathered such a zealous crowd of devotees around her isn't such a mystery: she's a young woman who speaks her mind; she does her own thing regardless of the oft-raised eyebrows from critics and industry types alike; and she's got that rare, compelling gift for making you watch.

Writhing on her piano bench like a two-year old with an achingly full bladder, Amos constantly looks as though she's about to lose it completely. She swats at the Bosendorfer grand for rhythmic impact. She opens her legs more often than Ama- da Marshall and then she dives off the deep end into some facsimile of crowd chatter that really feels more like a plunge into Tori's murky stream of consciousness.

"Hello Vancouver, sorry I didn't make it last time ha ha ha ... sorry. But I can't tell you why I couldn't make it... ha ha ... I might get arrested if I told you ... and you know what? My Harpsichord had fleas."

Well, now, that explains everything. So why ask the meaning of lyrical strings like "so I chased down your posies, your pansies in my hosies, then opened my hands, they were empty then ...?"

Indeed, why question Amos at all?

She's the kind of performer you must simply ac- cept as strange. Her endless loops of arpeggios, punctuated by sharp, thoroughly complete vocal notes from her stinging soprano are an acquired taste anyway.

And one that she's challenges more and more with each release.

When she started with Little Earthquakes, Amos held back from free form screaming, and actually followed some semblance of a melodic line. Under the Pink broadened the scope. But her latest release, Boys For Pele, from which she plucked most of her set list, just doesn't register on any standard scale. Entirely weightless, songs like Talula, Horses and Little Amsterdam float into the ether without anything to grasp on to. The rhythm floats in si- lence between her shrieks and contortions. Her lyrics leave you unmoved, despite the obvious angst behind them - even her I've-been-raped- statement-song came off sounding posed and in- sincere, at least for those who couldn't suspend disbelief.

The best pan of the evening had to be the light show, which at least had dramatic purpose. Four accordion-like hangers ran up and down from a central rig above, allowing the fancy laser lights to trace back and forth, up and down, the stage.

The effect was intriguing, artistic and entirely inspired, setting up the perfect contrast for the woman, who despite the wattage, remained frus- traitingly stuck in mental darkness.

MIKEWHY'S note: What's with the newspaper reviewers in Vancouver? They are a nasty bunch...

Amos rewarding, overwrought
By Stuart Derdeyn
Staff Writer

Tori Amos - July 19th, Orpheum Theatre

As soon as Dusty Springfield's Son of a Preacher Man was piped in and the backstage screen lit up like the night sky, Tori Amos, the Methodist preacher's daughter, had the sold out house at tne tips of her frenetic fingers. Screaming 'Toriphiles" - her mainly female fans - snapped up $30 Tori T-shirts and $15 Tori crucifixes.

"Her music's mine. She's so cute. You want to take her home, to dress her," said one devotee at the Orpheum Theatre Friday night.

"Yeah, just like Barbie, but with red hair, another agreed.

Few performers reach listeners on as personal a level as Tori Amos. With just a piano, her voice and a divinely subtle, intricate light show, she radiates spiritual energy - and frequent weirdness.

"If you ever go to Texas, bring some bug spray. I mean that on every level, girls," Amos advised while recounting how her harpsichord got fleas.

Amos freely claims her songs originate out of energy forces she captures and translates, the exception to this being her mid-'80s mistake, Y Kant Tori Read.

At times, Amos seemed to be exploding with unfocused energy. Sometimes you had to ask: Y Kant Tori Chill? During the show, drawing from material on her debut Little Earthquakes and last January's Boys for Pele, Amos's frenetic motion, vocal acrobatics and infinite arpeggios often were little more than duelling deliveries, causing songs to sound the same.

Still, magic surrounded many songs. Cornflake Girl's catchy stride- piano rift, Happy Phantom's playful chording and the visceral finale, Me and a Gun and a Man on My Back presented Tori Amos, the feminist fatale. She's a uniquely talented performer, projecting equal parts of healing and sexuality without sacrificing one iota of personal dignity. Rewarding and overwrought at the same time.

First off, I want to say "Hi"again to Matt. We met in the lineup to meet Tori, and it was great to finally meet someone from the RMTA. Congratulations on getting "Sister Janet" played, and thanks for the review and setlist (I thought I'd let you do it, bowing to your superior memory and your vast collection (40+) of Tori CDs). I won't comment on everything she played, but I'll try to flesh out the parts that stuck in my mind.

Anyhow, I arrived at the side entrance of the Vancouver Orpheum at about 4:00 PM, and there were about seven people already there hanging out, waiting for Tori (including Matt). Our ranks swelled to about 20-25 by the time she arrived. I've never been nervous before about meeting any of my musical idols (including Herbie Hancock and B.B. King, who were both really cool), but my heart was really pounding as Tori's limousine pulled up. Tori was dressed casually in jeans and a gray T-shirt, and she _did_ look great, but also a little tired. She was very sweet though, and looked genuinely touched when Matt handed her his tape. I was right after him in line, and somehow while she was signing my BFP liner, I managed to stammer out a request for (Joni Mitchell's) "A Case Of You." I also told her I thought it might be fun if she tried playing (Stevie Wonder's) "Superstition" on harpsichord. She looked surprised for a moment, and then nodded, saying "Yeah, that _would_ be cool. I love Stevie, but I've never covered one of his tunes. They're so _hard_, you know." (Yes, Tori, after devoting the past month or so to working on my funky clavinet licks, I _know_.) I was glad to find out that she was also a Stevie fan, and were I possessed of an innate sense of poise, I would have mentioned how I think Stevie has a tremendous (and rare) gift for making electric and electronic instruments sound very warm, natural, and human. As it was, it was all I could do to thank her for signing my album, and tell her how great it was to meet her. But if anyone out there hears her doing a Stevie Wonder cover sometime, you know who to thank for it... [smirk]

So, on to the show... When I saw Tori in Montreal (May 5), for some godawful reason the promoters wanted to start at 7:00 PM. Predictably enough, no one actually turned up on time, and there were these huge lineups to get in. Poor Willie Porter had to play while all these people were shuffling around in the dark, trying to find their seats, etc. This time around, the house was basically full when he walked on stage, and I got a second crack at hearing him play. I was very impressed--he's a fantastic guitar player, with a great blues-inflected, Stevie Ray Vaughan-esque voice. Highlights included his hilarious tune "Jesus On The Grille" and his cover of "A Day In The Life"--it's quite a daunting task to condense the Beatles' orchestral rave-up to just voice and guitar, but Willie made it work. The famous "Let's write a tune together" segment was especially good tonight. He asked for a topic, and (predictably) the suggestion was "sex". When he asked who the song should be about, he was barraged with cries of "Tori Amos", to which he replied by imitating a game show "wrong answer" button. "I think that one is off limits, guys." The leading character was eventually established as "Michael Bolton," and the story was set in "Smurfland" (are all the Smurf fans still out there?) Willie took the role of the somewhat reluctant object of Mr. Bolton's attentions, reminding him in the song's chorus "No glove, no love", and at one point threatening to have the Smurfs cover every one of his hit songs, then added, "Oh, too late, they already did."

Another classic moment happened right after Porter's set, when a representative from the local dance music station, Z95.3, came on to remind us who we were here to see. He was roundly booed by the audience, and he deserved it--it's not like Z plays any of Tori's tunes on their station or anything...

Anyhow, after the mandatorily Zeppelin-drenched intermission, "Son Of A Preacher Man" came on and everyone started screaming. Tori's improvised intro to Beauty Queen just rocked, with the pounding bass and frantic right hand figures gradually winding down to that single, beautiful note. Her playing last night was much freer than at the Montreal concert, and she tended to stretch out some of the phrases and generally play very rubato (out of strict time). Sometime this worked and sometimes it didn't--on some tunes, I found myself wishing that she'd just settle into a groove and stick with it. But I think at this point in the tour, some of the material is beginning to get a little stale, and she wants to keep things loose and unpredictable. In fact, sometimes she was so unpredictable that she lost Caton, as in "Little Amsterdam"--it took him a little while to gel with what she was doing. But Tori added a really hip solo section in the middle of the tune--it was very open-ended, sounding almost like something Keith Jarrett would do. Gave me lots of ideas for my upcoming arrangement of this tune...

Caton redeemed himself on the intro to "Cornflake Girl," keeping up the groove while Tori did her primal stomp dance. This tune had some nice twists to it, especially at the stuttering hemiola (a musical"3 vs. 2" figure, in case you were wondering) that accompanies "This is not really happening," going into the (usually) wailing "You bet your life it is." Instead of building during the hemiola, Tori brought it down to pianissimo, and the first time she sang "You bet your life," it was very soft and an octave below the normal range. She then made the sudden leap to forte for the second "You bet your life," which was really effective.

Can I just say how cool "China" is? Damn, I wish Tori would do more solo piano pieces, even if she just uses them as interludes between tunes.

"Leather" was a welcome surprise, and a chance for Tori to get downright sultry on us. I'll admit that I have a soft spot for Tori's "music hall" type tunes, like this one, "The Wrong Band", and "Mr. Zebra," so it was nice to hear at least one of them last night. She stretched out the solo on this one as well, lacing it with lots of tongue-in-cheek jazzy inflections.

As for "Caught A Lite Sneeze", I'll just mention that it was a tour de force, as usual, and leave it at that. "Talula" was memorable for the wrong reason. It's the only tune that uses pre-recorded accompaniment (if you want to be technical about it, it's probably all sampled and triggered by a computer sequencer), because it wouldn't work without the full orchestration. Ever since I heard her do this in Montreal, I'd been thinking that, considering how improvisatory Tori's playing is, it's got to be a little stifling having to follow the computer on that tune. Well, it finally happened--the accompaniment was triggered a little too early, and Tori got lost. Caton was motioning to the sound techs, trying to get them to do something about it, but Tori just gave up and stomped the "panic" switch at her feet, cutting off the sequenced parts and abandoning the tune.

(Incidentally, does anyone know why Tori needs to wear headphones when she plays harpsichord? Theoretically, the onstage monitor mix should be good enough for her to hear everything she needs to hear, and it seems to be fine for the piano tunes. Why does she need headphones for the harpsichord pieces? Anyhow, after she brought the tune to a sudden halt, she mentioned that she couldn't hear herself, even with the headphones. Which is probably why she got lost... )

Anyhow, Tori seemed a little embarrassed about the train wreck on "Talula," and decided to take time out to tell us one of her little stories. Perhaps to atone for the earlier mistake, she followed the crowd's request for "Happy Phantom," which she played brilliantly. Everything is forgiven.

It's quite the sudden change in mood from that piece to "Me And A Gun," but the chilling tone of her voice had everyone floored. This song is _so_ emotionally draining, for both performer and audience.

Like Matt, I was not very taken with "Putting The Damage On" when I first listened to it, but after having heard it countless times since then, including the two live performances, I've changed my mind. The bittersweet lyrics seem to get more poignant every time I hear them.

Of course I just about died when Tori started to play "A Case Of You." Apart from the thrill of hearing Tori play one of Joni's tunes (she really has a gift for finding the _essence_ of the piece she's covering... ), I was so touched that she actually played my request. I've been replaying this performance over and over in my mind ever since. Thank you, Tori, it really means a lot to me...

The second encore was sublime--Butterfly," "Tear In Your Hand," and "Sister Janet" (thanks, Matt!). The final tune on the harmonium was simple, direct, and beautiful. A great way to close the concert. Tori makes you feel as if she's singing everything just for _you_, and everyone else just fades away. Seeing her live is a truly intimate and deeply moving experience, and there are very few artists out there who can reach out to the audience the way she does.

While I don't think my friend Sarah, a Tori neophyte, was as enthralled by the performance as I was, she did enjoy the concert, and now wants to go buy an album. So it looks like we might have another convert here... Anyhow, I'm very honoured that I got to meet Tori, and hopefully next time I meet her I'll be a little more articulate. Until then...

I had just come back from Seattle the day before this show. We were is Seattle watching no other than the Tori Amos shows down there. I had Talked to Tori on the 16th (the first night of the Seattle shows) and a couple friends and I had Given her a pillow we made her. it was a velvet pillow with the words "tori's tour pillow" written on the front, it also had a picture of peter rabbit and the quote, "Peter only got callomile tea. But all the good rabbits got milk,bread, and berries for dinner." It was a cool pillow.

anyway, we did as the first reviewer did (Matt Presidente) and went at 4:00. I actually do remember a taller guy giving her a tape. But we were at the back of the line, so i couldn't hear what they were saying. after about 10 minutes, we get to the front of the line, and just as in Seattle 3 nights before, there was a beautiful Tori greeting me. Because we were at the back of the line, Tori talked to us for, it seemed like forever (a good good thing), but it was really only about 10 minutes. She was so nice, and cheerful for the months of touring she's been through and I never wanted to leave.

We talked about the pillow, and she said (jumping back), "oh it was wonderful!".It was the best feeling I've ever had in the world, and I can't even come close to recreating it. I also Gave her a tape that I had recorded, she asked if I was in a band, I said Yes I was, and then for some odd reason, she gave me the number of Michal Weaver, from the LA offices, telling me she wanted to hear any releases that we come out with. When it came time to go, I was glowing with this uphorick high, and as I was leaving she said good-bye Ryan and Kelly to me and my friend.

The show was amazing, as usual, my my highlights were after she messed up in 'Talula', I yelled "It's alright Tori! It's ok!", and she replied "oh, thank-you. These things happen you know?" then she went of on the story, only to play 'Happy Phantom'. This is by far one of my favorite songs. the marvelous 'yes anastasia'; I don't even need to say anything about this song. But the real Kicker came when she played 'Butterfly' in her encore. I sounded so beautiful that I spent the entire last song, 'Sister Janet', behind a curtain of tears. However I was not as emotional at this show, as I was at the July 16 Seattle show when Tori played 'Frog On My Toe'. That, was a religous experience!

After the show was finished, I ran for the stage door to say good-bye to Tori. This time with a group of 10 or so friends. when she worked her way the the secton of the barracade we were along she looked at me and said, "oh don't tell me..", I said "Ryan", she jumped back once agian and yelled very loudly, "RYAN! HI RYAN!" then turned to my friend and said, "..and I know Kelly! Ryan and Kelly. I have your tape, and your pillow!" My friend, Cathleen, then handed her a red ribbon she had been wearing in her hair, and said,"here you go! A red Ribbon for you!".

Tori replied with, "thank-you very much! I didn't play that song tonight. I usually play her every night. But Leather just wanted to come out in-stead. the 'red ribbon girls' got the night off, so they're all out drinking margeritas.".

After that she had to go. I was upset so, she gave me a big hug, i thanked her for playing 'yes,anastasia', she said "your very welcome". As the tour bus was driving away, she stuck a hand puppet out the window, and said good-bye to everyone with the hand puppet. AND JUST LIKE THAT----- it was all over!! I am still very upset this week. Oh-well. she'll be back. and you can bet that i'll be right there standing with Matt Presidente and all the other wonderful Torifilles waiting to see the Queen of the Faries.

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7/17 10:30pm Seattle

Beauty Queen
Horses
I'm On Fire
Blood Roses
Little Amsterdam
Pretty Good Year
Honey
Little Earthquakes
London Girls
Marianne
Precious Things (41 second grrrrl)
Winter
Lovesong
Me and A Gun

---1st Encore---
Let It Be
Twinkle

---2nd Encore---
In The Springtime of His Voodoo
Angie

Alright... this was THE best one here. Not only because I was in the front row, but look at that setlist! :)

I'm On Fire was so fun to hear. I really love her cover of that song. Tori really does a wonderful job with Little Amsterdam live. Honey was also something I was expecting, because someone had asked for it the other night, but it's such a great song... I just love it. :) London Girls came out of nowhere... she really cracked me up in this song and she had a lot of fun with it. Although she had to get help from the audience with the first line. ;) Marianne and Winter were both beautifully done. She played Lovesong on the harpsichord surprisingly. In the background there was black and white video of a rollercoaster ride. The audience was dead silent during Me and A Gun and when she came back out with Let It Be, I was in awe. She really performs this song wonderful. Although Twinkle isn't one of my fave's, she made it truly enjoyable live. Springtime was absolutely stunning. I love it when she gets down with Caton. ;)

So.. I have to tell you my story. I met her before both soundchecks and had her sign a big picture of her and me. She remembered me and since my name is Angie, I asked her to play "Angie" for me. I gave her hugs and got another picture with her and told her I'd be at all three shows, but for the last one, I had front row seats. :) So by the time the 1st Encore to the last show is over I'm figuring she just forgot about it. After Springtime, they didn't roll out the harmonium and she sang "Angie" as her closing song. I was in the front row and she'd look straight at me. It was awesome. :) Afterwards there were a ton of people, but she grabbed my hand and held it since she couldn't hug me and I got to thank her for everything.

Tori Review....my impressions of her impressions....

This is not a direct quote, but rather the gist of what I heard....feel free to blame me if you take it wrong.
She went into some karate moves and did a little Indian beat right into Cornflake Girl.....

bass

Alrighty... last night's shows were amazing. Especially the last one...
which was so incredible. Here we
go:

7/17 7:00 Seattle:

Beauty Queen
Horses
Crucify
Caught A Lite Sneeze
Cornflake Girl
Graveyard
Tear In Your Hand
Space Dog
Daisy Dead Petals
Putting The Damage On
Precious Things (42 second grrrrl)
Not the Red Baron
Happy Phantom
Talula
Me and A Gun

---1st Encore---
Tiny Dancer
Baker Baker

---2nd Encore---
Father Lucifer
Etienne

Okay... I'll just go over the highlights of this show for me. First off was Graveyard. I was totally unsuspecting and she was kinda playing around with the audience too. She started playing something on the piano and goes "ya know... this could be anything..." and later on she began what I thought was gonna be Icicle and said "oh... change of plans" and played another song. ;) Tear In Your Hand was really great to hear and Space Dog was awesome with Caton making those funky sounds he does so well. Daisy Dead Petals was a rare treat. Precious Things wasn't as intense as the first night, but was still incredible. She really had fun with Happy Phantom. She started singin these cute little sounds into the mike and danced all over the keyboard. Afterward she said something about how "that girl had gotten into some acid". ;) Tiny Dancer was beautiful... I have a recording of it, but she played the full version this time. Father Lucifer was one of my favorites and I was so pleased she played this. What she did with this song was amazing and I loved the way she ended it. Then they rolled out the harmonium once more and she said "I never do this... Caton remembers this...." as she starts to play Etienne. It was gorgeous on the harmonium and it made me think of the bagpipes in this song on the album.

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Willie Porter - really liked him, especially when he sang that "Jesus on
the Grill" song. Anyone else hear that one? And "Cold Wind" was very good.

Anyway...

Led Zepellin song before she came out, then, of course, "Son of a
Preacher Man."

Beauty Queen - with a short intro to it on piano that was a nice change :)

Horses - not as smooth as on the album, more of an edge to it, more real

Leather - who doesn't like this one? :)

Blood Roses - I never really enjoyed this song on the album for some
reason, but hearing it live changed my mind - like from the
microwave vs. from scratch

Little Amsterdam - WOW!! SO dark, this one. The "round and around"
section was pre-emited for some major reworking and blew me away
- Tori was never this passionate on her last tour (IMHO), she
looked to be wresling with one of those Monsters she talks about.
...mama got shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhit...

Cornflake Girl - She did the dance!! Squwatting down and yanking on
something in front of her hand over hand while Steve played the
guitar...it was groovy.

Doughnut Song - It sounded like the pulled a bit of lyrics from later on
in the song to intro it, and then started into it. ...you can
tell me it's over... I really love this song.

Little Earthquakes - Kind of a surprise - didn't expect to hear this
one. The "give me life, give me pain" section just echoes
something familiar in my own brain and wakes me up.

Frog on my Toe - She explained before this song that it was originally
born while being a bit sloshed and the crew had recorded it.
Nice to hear a b-side, especially this one.

Icicle - the "I could have..." section was all done in the lower octave,
made me wanna crawl somewhere. It always hurts to hear that part
of the song, knowing that I have lost opportunities, too.


Precious Things - My favorite on LE. She was REALLY exorcising a demon
in the last part of the song!! ...let them bleed, let them bleed...
...let them bleed, let them wash me clean, daddy... Her voice
was everywhere on this one, in the clouds, in the gutter. It was
almost hard to hear it happening - sounded painful. I didn't
have my watch with me or I would have timed the grrrrl, but it was
pretty long and accompanied by the traditional self feel-up.

Not the Red Baron - I really really like this song. I haven't heard many
people say that on rmta (if any). I think it's very important
to, at the very least, acknowledge the other side's plight. It's
short (not that I don't like long) and one of the more easily
understood songs off of B4P (not that I don't like confusing).
I'm taking a stand. :)

Talula (tornado version) - My friend that I went with commented that song
seemed to be the most flowing of the concert. I commented back
that part of the song had the recording of the extra stuff
playing and so it most resembled what it was like on the album
(he hasn't heard B4P). It reminded my of "God" and the UtP tour
"Cornflake Girl" in that respect, but I liked this "Talula"
better becuase she wasn't bound to the tape for the entire song.

Caught a Lite Sneeze - Done like the empty-V performance but SO much
better and more real. And boy, was that spire hot! What a note!!

Me and a Gun - After hearing about this song in other cities and the bad
audience reactions, I was a bit scared at first. The only thing
that I could hear other than TOri during this one were 3 people
coughing at different times and I *think* someone crying near the
front of the stage at the very end and daying, "But you did..."
...but I haven't seen Barbados, so I must get out of this... Can
anyone help me out here? I was in row J - maybe someone was
closer. Steve helped her off stage after that. I could hardly
believe that she could pull that off after putting SO much energy
and passion and spirit into the rest of the concert.

Encore 1

Black Swan - I've never heard this one live - so beautiful. The
beginning was a little weak, but after singing MAAG like she did,
I don't even know how she could have the energy to stand.

Mother - I found this to be a complete surprise. I haven't listened to
LE for a while and I hadn't realized how I missed this song.

Encore 2

Pretty Good Year - That middle part ...what's it gonna take... just ROCKS
with Steve there.

Cool on your Island Intro - a few hoots and hollers as she mentioned and
sang a bit of this one with the pump organ. I have a bootleg of YKTR...
I got it after B4P, and I was astonished by the similarities
between the two with what she's doing with her voice. Can anyone
else agree with me out there? I'm not a newbie to Tori and I
think I'm right here.

Hey Jupiter - I will admit that I didn't like this song on the latest
Leno she was on, but really enjoyed it live. That's probably
true with all music for most people, but I didn't think that I
would like it at all. But I did. :)


I've seen Tori twice before this and I've never seen her perform up at
this level at ALL - I can't imagine how she can do it night after night.
Perhaps it was the lighting, but she did look tired...two more shows
tonight in Seattle. WOW - no wonder she eats so much!!

She was so real and intimate with us - no other artist I've seen in
concert has ever been like that. It makes me very sad that I couldn't se
her after the show, give her a hug, and just thank her for coming. She's
such an amazing musician.

Wow.

Okay I dont have too much time, but I'll post the setlist first...

Soundcheck-
Cornflake Girl
Little Earthquakes
Talula
Daniel
Honey
Sacrifice (a song I had never heard)

Curtain Rise-
Beauty Queen
Horses
Leather
Blood Roses
Little Amsterdam
Cornflake Girl
Doughnut Song
Little Earthquakes
Frog On My Toe
Icicle
Precious Things
Not the Red Baron
Caught A Lite Sneeze
Talula
Me and a Gun

--- 1st Encore---
Black Swan
Mother

---2nd Encore---
Pretty Good Year
Cool On Your Island
Hey Jupiter

Well this was my first Tori concert. :) *yummy* I waited outside before to meet her before soundcheck. She actually remembered me and I had her sign my picture of her and me. We chatted for a bit and she was off to soundcheck. We could hear it through a door outside. :)

So Willy Porter was definately better than I thought he'd be. Loved his Jesus On The Grill song. ;) Finally Tori came out and I could tell we had a good audience. The lighting for Beauty Queen and Horses was really cool. It looked like a night sky and I just kinda sat there in awe. She went right into Leather which was excellent. Then she introduced the harpsy telling us she was her new friend. When someone in the audience asked it's name, Tori replied "Her." :) Little Amsterdam was awesome as well.. Caton was there making the funky guitar sounds. For Cornflake Girl she got up and danced on stage while Caton did the guitar thing. I was very glad to hear Doughnut Song too.. one of my faves. Little Earthquakes was a pleasant surprise as well. She started talking about how she was just discovering alcohol and how she'd had a few too many martini's when she came to the piano and the guys had left the record button on and this is what came out.. Frog On My Toe. :)

Icicle was very beautiful as usual. I was a bit disappointed she didn't play the "onward christian soldiers" intro, but it was probably for the best since I had my x-tian dad with me. ;) On to Precious Things... this was probably the most intense song of the evening. Absolutely blew me away. She was standing up there screaming "these precious things.. let them wash me daddy.. wash me clean daddy". Wow.. beautifully distrubing. Oh.. and I timed the "grrrrrl" at 37 seconds. ;)

Not the Red Baron was gorgeous. I liked the pilot scenes in the background. CALS was nice... it's not one of my faves but the way she pounds the beat out on her piano and switches microphones is awesome. Talula was very fun.. I like the backing track, even though it makes it hard to hear the harpsichord. The audience was totally silent during Me and A Gun.

I was really happy she played Black Swan... it was beautiful as usual. :) Mother and Pretty Good Year were incredible too. I love that loud part with Caton on the guitar. Then they rolled out the Harmonium and I was expecting Hey Jupiter. She said "But first... remember this big hit?" and went on to play the first verse and chorus to Cool On Your Island.

Tori: This champion thrives on challenge
by Tom Phalen special to The Seattle Times

Tori Amos may be one of the bravest and most daring of
contemporary artists.

She doesn't shy away from presenting challenging material,
particularly those songs from her latest recording "Boys For Pele," and
she doesn't apologize for excluding older, more familiar work. At least she
didn't last night.

What she'll do tonight is anyone's guess, but if she follows suit,
it'll be direct, compelling, funny and honest, sometimes painfully so.

Amos took the stage to the strains of "Son of a Preacher Man" by
Dusty Springfield, no doubt a nod to the singer and Amos' father, himself
a minister. It wasn't lost on the audience, largely young, female and
enthusiastically adoring. However, Amos was treated as a champion rather
than an icon, although more than a few were compelled to audibly express
their love.

A bemused Amos accepted the accolades graciously, but steadfastly
carried on with whatever story might have been interrrupted.

Song introductions or explanations were few. The singer preferred
talking about the early morning demands she made on her recording crew -
the time when girls can make their voices sound that "certain way" - or
her newly acquired and admittedly politically incorrect fondness for 1800
tequila.

Joined on some songs by guitarist Steve Caton, who didn't play
leads so much as add orchestral nuance, Amos stroked and hammered her
9-foot Bosendorfer piano and went honky-tonk on a harpsichord named "Her."
As always, the piano bench became a playground slide and the singer danced
as often as she slid.

She also said as much with her face as with her words and music.
Amos can easily turn beatific, haughty, cruel, amused and amazed. Her
segue from the half smiling auto eroticism of "Icicle" to the furious auto
exorcism of "Precious Things" was astounding and frightening.

The resigned grin she gave "Leather," from "little Earthquakes,"
made the song's tired tension almost sweet. "Cornflake Girl" was
mischievous while the set-closing "Me and a Gun," the retelling of Amos'
own rape some years back, still shows the toll it takes on the singer.
Once stark and strident, the a cappella number has becoming [sic] weary
and numbing to Amos, yet still capable of stealing the collective breath
from an entire audience.

The simple staging and ample lighting were first rate. Amos,
unlike her last time here, was hard on top of her game, energized and
giving, both as a musician and a human being.

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This was our first Tori concert, (we only became truly rabid fans after the last tour was over), so we were not completely prepared for the whole experience.

The show started on time at 7:30, at the SJSU Event Center, a basketball stadium. To our surprise, only about 1/3 of the seats were filled when the lights went down.

The opening act was that Willy guy. He was pretty good, and played for about 1/2 an hour. We were getting kind of antsy at this point. There was a lot of that fake fog in the air, and all of us started to get headaches. It was also getting very warm in the arena, because of the mass of bodies slowly accreting.

After he finished up, after 4 or 5 songs, the lights went up again and we waited... and waited... it was 9pm when the annoying background music went off and the lights dimmed. "Son of a Preacher Man" filled the air, and the Goddess mounted the stage. She went right to the piano and jumped into "Beauty Queen/Horses."

The rest went something like this:

2. Blood Roses
(video of cells in the background)
This was one of the very few Tori songs that we would have been really
disappointed if it hadn't been played. The harpsichord playing was surperb;
she was bathed in crimson light.

3. Yes, Anastasia

4. Cornflake Girl

a major crowd favorite, the cheering was deafening. Tori performed her
happy mime dance as Caton played.

5. Butterfly

hardly anyone seemed to recognize this rare b-side.

6. Father Lucifer
(video of flowing clouds)

7. Space Dog

the astronomical video in the background was perfectly suited to the mood
of this, one of our favorites.

8. Sugar

another b-side

9. Mother

10. Not The Red Baron
(vintage video of triplanes, biplanes, etc.)

11. Caught A Lite Sneeze

during this song, Tori pulled her trick of holding a note with her voice as
she slowly swung around and switched to harpsichord.

12. Precious Things

Two things of note in this song. First, as she got to the famous "just
because you can make me cum..." line, her right hand sneaked down into her
crotch and stayed there for a few moments. Second, as she was singing
'daddy wash this thing' over and over, she started screaming, opened her
eyes very wide, and pulled the best murderous-bitch face you've ever seen.

13. Talula (Tornado Mix)

There were a good number of pre-recorded tracks in this song (otherwise,
how could it possibly be the tornado mix?), but that didn't detract from
the stunning performance.

14. Me And A Gun

This pissed us off. As Tori was singing this very important song, people
started getting up, talking, and there were even a few deprecating shouts
heard. Tori looked kind of pissed, and stared at the offenders, but it
didn't seem to help.


Encore 1

15. American Pie (cover)

People started singing along to this cover, played slower than the original.

16. Smells Like Teen Spirit (cover)

Amazingly, few seemed to know what this song was until she sang the first line.

Encore 2

17. Graveyard (by fan request)

She played this for 'that sweet little person' in the front row.

18. Pretty Good Year

19. Silent All These Years

I totally broke down during this, my favorite Tori song of all time. I
viewed the rest of the concert through a veil of tears.


20. Purple Rain (cover)

The fog machines went into overdrive as she played this old Prince song.
Violet light bathed the stage as she played an electric organ.

The concert ended at about 10:50pm, and was by far worth the money and time
spent.

Tori was wonderful! What can I say? She looked very comfortable in a white, sleeveless "Annie" T-shirt over a white leotard and faded blue jeans and waved to the audience with her little two- handed wave.

She opened with Beauty Queen followed by Horses, and even brought along a Leslie cabinet for the piano. It was pretty much lost in the acoustics of the Event Center unfortunately. The girl sitting behind me said to her boyfriend(?) "You're having a moment aren't you?" I think I was too. She really surprised me by playing Anastasia next. It was beautiful.

She chatted a bit about a letter she had recently gotten from a girl who wondered why she hated Jesus so much. Tori said she didn't hate Jesus, and that in fact she thought if he was alive today, he probably wouldn't be a Christian. She tossed some lip gloss to a woman in the front row, but I gather (couldn't see) that a guy sitting next to her grabbed it as a souvenir. She talked about Y Kant Tori Read and about metal music before Caton started Cornflake Girl. Tori stood up and started doing these stretchy sort of dance moves while Caton played. The energy that Caton brings really adds to the concert. The addition of the harpsichord is great too, adding another voice to her music.

I don't recall every song she played and will leave a set list to others, but it covered a good range of songs from B-sides like Sugar to the same version of Caught a Lite Sneeze that she did on "MTV Unplugged". She accidentally started Sneeze without the mute on the harpsichord, stopped after a few bars, said "oops, I made a mistake", put on the mute and started again.

The highlight for me was Talula. She started by singing the a-capella "she's chasing tornadoes" opening from the Tornado mix before starting the harpsichord part. At this point it sounded like it was going to just be her and Caton. But at the start of the "ran into the henchman" verse, the drums, bass, background vocals and effects came in off a tape. God, the energy just soared! There was no clue prior to this point that it was going to be a tape-supported version. It wasn't exactly the same as the Tornado mix but certainly contained elements of it. It sounded fantastic and gave a clue as to how great some of her songs would sound with a full band. She certainly wouldn't have the freedom she has now, but it would be an interesting trade-off. The audience was absolutely silent for "Me and a Gun" which followed. It's amazing that she can continue to sing this song with such feeling after all the years.

Her encores included Silent All These Years and American Pie/Smells Like Teen Spirit. She even got the audience singing along during the last chorus of American Pie. She played a little ditty for an audience member (who had given her something at the start of this final encore) while the crew rolled in the harmonium. She then turned to it and played Purple Rain. The high singing at the end of the song reminded me of the very similar vocal parts in Hey Jupiter, and that made it sound like a Tori original. I missed two of my favorite songs, Hey Jupiter and Putting the Damage On, but I know I heard songs that people at other shows hadn't so I suppose it was a fair trade.

It was a very wonderful evening that certainly will stay with me, plus I got a great T-shirt (the black one with "Tori Amos" on the front and "Tour 1996" on the back).

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Awright. . . I didn't make the early show tonight, but I just got back from the late show at the Paramount. No Willy -- no opening act at all, just Led Zeppelin playing in the background until the lights dimmed, "Son of A Preacher Man" came over the sound system, and Tori sashayed out. . .

Well, I've been to my first Tori concert tonight and I wanted to write down my emotions as quick as possible. It was quite a memorable evening, and Tori performed a magical evening in Oakland. I was worried that since she had two shows in one night she would hold back, but it turned out my concerns were not necessary. Anyway, here's my rushed and scanty report, but it's something.

Before I begin recalling my experience, I must apologize for not remembering a songs and the appropriate order of all of them. The performance was just so mesmerizing that I'm still recuperating.

As soon as Tori entered the stage, the crowd at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, California erupted with excitement. She sat at the Bosendorfer and was also parallel with her harpsichord. She started with Beauty Queen/Horses. The song was performed immaculately with passion. Her performance of the song set the stage of what to expect from the rest of the concert. Clear and emotional music. The next song was Icicle. It was played with an upbeat tempo and was touching. She played a third song, but I have forgotten what it was called. It isn't often played and isn't on any albums. Ms. Amos then talked to the crowd. She explained a little about her stay in Ireland and the relationship she has with the people how help put on these productions. She then processed to play Pretty Good Year. Steve then came out and they played a very "exciting" version of Cornflake Girl. Tori next moved to the harpsichord and played Caught a light sneeze. Tori again spoke to the crowd again and told how she came upon writing the song Muhammad My Friend. She said that during church one Christmas eve, her father complained to her that she wasn't singing to the hymns. She told him that she didn't care for song. In reply, her father told her to write the song she would want, and so she played the song. It was very funny and uplifting.

Then Steve left and Tori played Little Earthquakes, Winter and Space Dog. Steve came back out and they both played an incredibly version of Talula. I am awestruck. In the background of the song, drums were playing with an upbeat to the harpsichord and guitar. The song was upbeat and I found my self, and much of the crowd, grooving to the tunes. One of the more memorable songs of the whole evening. Then Tori slowed down and played Doughnut Song. Tori then took the microphone and sang an intense Me and a Gun. The song started off on a normal rhythm, but progressively slowed down. Tori then began to cry and the tear drops could be heard on the microphone. The entire crowd was dumfounded by the song. Afterwards, she left the stage for a quick breather. She returned and played Not the Red Baron and Twinkle. She left the stage and returned for the encore with Steve. They played a wonderful A Case of You and then Sister Janet on the organ. Most unique. Then she left the stage with Steve to rest for a good hour and half before she began the second concert of the night.

The concert as a whole was incredible. She gave her all and performed all the songs perfectly. Many members of the crowd, as well as myself, were gratified when the favorite songs of each individual were performed. What a night.

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The Paramount Theater in downtown Oakland is an old art-deco movie theater with a palatial interior, restored a few years back. Incidentally, they still show films there -- _Bringing Up Baby_ is on the bill for July 13 -- and still have an immense organ. I mean, they still have an immense theater organ, on which concerts are given before movie showings. . . I was secretly hoping that Tori would play it; that would ROCK. She didn't, but somehow that was OK. If only I hadn't been in the balcony (!@#?*! TicketBastard lottery. . . )

NOTE FROM MIKEWHY: Ever since I joined the RDT mailing list, Steve's posts have really stood out. This one touched me greatly...

I've been waiting to do this ever since I joined RDT some 18 months ago. So this is gonna be a long one, even though - sorry - no song list and no timing on "grrrrrrrrrrrl". (It was a long one though, and wonderfully theatrical.) These are some random thoughts, though.

First, the Paramount Theatre in Oakland. Reports of the physical beauty of this place were NOT exaggerated. Quite simply, the most beautiful theater I've ever seen. Upkeep must cost a fortune! My seats were in the balcony, but in this case I sorta liked that - it gave me a great view of the theatre, and the swell lighting. (More on that in the moment.) As for Tori, I know what she looks like. :-)

Next. Contrary to some recent speculation on this list, Tori is HAPPY. She's ebullient, jiving with the crowd like I remember from '92. The shows I saw in '94 were, I believe, closely post-Eric-breakup. Seeing her tonight and remembering her then, it strikes me that she was just miserable. And now she isn't. Yay!

The only cloud on the horizon is that I did see signs of this carpal tunnel thing, namely on "Precious Things", which she just doesn't pound out like she used to. She makes up for it in other ways; the song is still a highlight. But I found it a bit disconcerting. I hope she can do something about that....

Next. That lighting. Gorgeous! MUCH better than '94. That lighting was chilly and distancing; this is warm and inviting. Very creative, with cool effects (the triangular slide/movie screen, the moving lights, the stars, etc.) , but never interfering with the show. I'd endeavor to say that was the best-lit music show I've ever seen. Kudos!

Next. The thing about Tori calling her songs "girls". This is used as proof of what a big weirdo she is, but hey - it's accurate. Like girls, these songs grow with age. "Cornflake Girl", for instance, had kind of a gawky adolescence in my estimation, but has now grown into something special.

Next, and this is the main topic. One thing I realize that makes Tori special is that she is the only musician ever who is responsible for my meeting some really cool people. And her show was like a gathering, where you see these folks, and that makes it even more special. There was the illustrious Mr. (E) Stephen Mack, he of the very cool new business card he gave me, and the always stylish and dashing Anthony Kosky.

There was that girl whose name I had forgotten (I understand it's Anka or something like that), but with whom I had had a delightful chat at the Pele pre-release listening party in January. (I'm more than twice her age, but geez - she made me feel stupid, she was so bright and funny.) She ran up and hugged me, but then I got distracted and she disappeared before I could talk to her. If anyone here knows who I'm talking about, please let her know I didn't mean to blow her off and would love to chat with her again sometime.

And then, of course, there was our wonderful Laurahey (and her very nice sister), who had the very best t-shirt there because her mom made it for her. What a special person she is, and I hope that all of you non-Bay Area types out there aren't jealous of those of us who've met her offline.

And then, there were the ones I unfortunately didn't see - Greg, Lila, Carol - but whose presence was most definitely felt. And all the other Tori people who I've never met, but in some way I know so well. Just like Tori, who's sort of like my best friend I've never met.

And you know, I've sorta felt a little left out recently. I'm only seeing one show this tour (due to a play I've directed opening this week - I missed the preview for Tori). I read about the folks who cover their bodies in Tori tattoos or devote their life to making Tori dolls, and I feel like a "Tori moderate". More importantly, I see the intense emotional connection that someone like Laura has with Tori (sisters in a past life, I'm sure of it), and I envy that. I want to love Tori even more.

But then I see her, and it's OK. One show is OK. How I feel about her is OK, because it's the way I am. And I'm not competing with anyone. I may be a Tori moderate, but she is more important to me than any performing artist ever has been, and ever will be.

And this concert was especially important. Why? Well, that brings us to "topper frosty". My friend Pam read this off a sign - I guess it's some sort of Oakland ice cream treat - and I thought she was talking about Tori. As in, "I wanna top 'er frosty!" And we had a good laugh, as we had all night. Me and my three friends, whose presence made this night so special.

There was the aforementioned one, my sweet and wonderful Pammie. Bill, my employer and friend, who's shared five of my six Tori shows with me. And Sally, who I brought for her birthday, my dear friend who also happens to be the only person I've ever been in love with. (She doesn't share that part of the feeling, but she's OK with it, and hey - the friendship is enough.) To share this experience with these three special people made it - well, about three times more special.

So that's what I'll remember about July 11, 1996. After I forget the theatre and the lights and maybe even the music, I'll remember the friends. The folks I've recently met. The three people who are among the most special in the world to me. And, of course, my best friend who I've never met. Thank you, Tori, for creating this wonderful experience.

Jesus Christ, that WAS long, wasn't it? :-)

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I was able to go to the concert on Wednesday July 10th in Sacramento Califonia. And it seems like it never gets mentioned. But it was wonderful. I have loved her since "Little Earthquakes" came out, but this was my first ever Tori concert. It was scheduled to start at 7:30 pm..the opening act was great,(for the life of me I can't remember his name)but then we waited..and waited and waited..It was so hot in the theater, it was packed..and I was almost passed out when I heard the music announcing her. I think she came out almost 2 hrs late, with no real explanation..but I quickly forgave her;)

She came out and said to us, "I've just had a few days off.." "So it feels like when it's your first day back to school" "So these are my back to school shoes"..(pointing to her very shiny ELECTRIC BLUE high heel shoes) Every body loved it. The sound system really sucked! it was as if they just couldn't get it right..and at one point during "little Amsterdam" I thought Caton was out of his mind or something it just soundes so OFF!! and I could tell he kept trying to get it together cause he kept screwing with his guitar..but it was so cute right after they finished the song Tori goes (making a huge racket across her piano keys hitting any and all keys at once).."hey it happens!"

I had brought a red rose with a letter STAPLED, TAPED, CRAZY GLUED, to it and a little mojo bag I made for her with some herbs and some stones and things in it. I went up while she was singing "Silent" and went right up to the stage and she spotted me standing there..and I put the rose up on the stage and she smiled! I was like a deer caught in the headlights by then, so the lady from the theater had to remind me to go sit down. I tell you..she looks even more wonderful in person than any picture. I started crying, because of it. (what a wimp);) She played every single one of my favorite songs..as she sang "Me and a Gun" the crowd was so silent and respectful it was like the feeling in the room that we all knew what happened and we hated that she had to go thru that. Somebody shouted "We all Love you.." She did (can't remember) atleast one encore.

I just took a test in my summer school calculus class that I did not study for at all, but it was worth it because I got to see Tori in Sacramento yesterday!!!

It was really great for me, because I've never been to one of her concerts before. I went really early so I could see her before the show. When Tori arrived, I wanted to thank her for all the songs that have influenced my life. But all I managed to do was stand there and grin like a moron.

The show was amazing. Tori was really talkative last night, and she said something in between almost every song. I can't remember the order, but these are the songs she played: Beauty Queen/Horses
Blood Roses
Happy Phantom (After here the order is wrong, I think)
Little Amsterdam
Cornflake Girl
Doughnut Song
Pretty Good Year
Precious Things
Upside Down
Caught A Lite Sneeze
Not the Red Baron
Muhammad My Friend
Me and a Gun (This one was last, it was beautiful.)

Encore 1
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Silent All These Years

Encore 2
Father Lucifer
Mr Zebra
Purple Rain

I was kind of surprised she didn't play Hey Jupiter or Talula. I was kind of hoping for Past the Mission since it's one of my favorites, but it was still a great show.

Hi everyone! This is my first time posting here, I wasn't going to send in a review of the concert (for reasons which will soon become apparent) but since it appears no one else is going to, here goes:

It was great! It was about a 5 1/2 hour drive from where I live (Arcata) to Sacramento but it was definitely worth it. Willy Porter was great, his let's-all-make-up-a-song was about a girl named Becky eating cheese while she rode her broomstick to Lodi. Another funny moment occured when he was talking about how California had flowers growing in the freeway medians, and what a great job it would be to trim them. Someone in the audience shouted out "drunk drivers do it", referring to the program where drunk drivers can work off their community service requirement by working on road crews, but apparently Willy thought it was a joke about drunk drivers veering off the road and trimming the bushes with their cars.

Then Tori came out, to "Son of a Preacher Man", did her two-handed wave, etc.

The setlist: (more or less)

I lost the paper I wrote the encores on, there were two encores, two songs each, I think the first song of the first encore was "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", and the last song of the second encore was "Purple Rain".

------

Tori seemed talkative and in good spirits. She mentioned that she had a week off and said it was like going back to school, and that she had her back-to-school shoes on. Before "Muhammad" she told a story about going to Christmas service with her father two years ago, and kids in the choir with caked-on snot under their noses. A 30-second grrrrrrl in "Precious Things". During one of the encores Caton made some sort of mistake, I think he might have gone to the break a verse too early, and she said something like "Don't worry about it, Caton, just keep playing! Everybody fucks up" and then started hitting random blocks of keys with the palms of her hands. Anyway, a great show, well worth the drive!

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No one has apparently posted yet concerning either of the two shows last night in Phoenix, but I have some observations about the 10pm show (later of the two). Suffice it to say that Tori was *incredible* and put a tremendous amount of energy and life into our show after having already given a show earlier the same evening. First the list: