The show also included little interview segments, as well as Crossroads host Amy Scott commenting on Tori. As Amy spoke, there were various tv screens in the background showing clips from several Tori videos. Words were also flashed on the screen that supposedly described Tori or her music. They included: provocative, beautiful, confessions, disturbing, sexual, lush, oblique, spiritual, intimate, honest, unconventional, twisted, obscure, emotional, and powerful.
Here is a little transcript of what Tori said between the live performances.
"What is normal anymore? I'm scared of normal. Normal, I'm like uuggh. I'm going left, normal NO."
"To me anger is only one small splatch on the palette. If you're looking at when you are writing, emotions are part of the palette, which translates into time, rhythms, voicings...how you use this stuff (gestures to the piano). Whether it's humor, which is kind of a big part of my palette..."
"I was working at 13, but I didn't make enough to support myself until I was 15. I think it was good that I played clubs for so long, because it makes you appreciate when people aren't pouring dry martinis all over your piano."
"There is a very set idea, no different from a song..it has its form and the yet where you take that breath in a millisecond can change the whole thing. So once you begin to understand the power of a breath, or just that you wait that extra second to put that hand down on the bottom end, That changes...I mean basically you're not making love to a metronome. If you do that, why even try? "
"The intention was, wait a minute, we're communicating in a language, that other people speak, but might not be able to play themselves."
"As a singer I go to another instrument to learn MY instrument. As a piano player I went to the guitar players, I went to Jimmy Page. I go to other mediums. If I'm dealing with rhythm, alot of times I'll go listen to race cars. I'll listen to the engines rev. So I always go to another medium sometimes to understand mine better. "
A review of the show
The following is a really good review of Tori's performance from Tori fan HunterXTC, who posted this on rec.music.tori-amos. It sums up the performance better than I could!
perhaps in another life tori was a deconstructionist painter. it seems like she can take a song and distort it (maybe the wrong word) and make it a thing of beauty. on the vh-1 crossroads show last night, i was amazed at the passion of "im on fire". ive never been a big fan of springsteen, although i do have nebraska and tunnel of love cds. he sings im on fire in that dull monotone, no flame to the fire, while tori takes it to a place he could only wish to be. i loved it when she sang that line "i gotta bad desire" and flashed the camera that wicked look she always gives in concert :)
i thought the show on the whole was pretty good; they didnt have some asshole interviewer trying to get into her head... that amy scott merely gave information that we have all heard a million times, but at least they let tori give her view on the music itself....
did anyone think she seemed a bit subdued though??? it certainly wasnt the frontal assult tori gives live, and for some reason she seemed to stare at the camera a bit too much. in concert, she seems so into the music, into the piano.... i dunno, maybe its just me and the fact that i saw her a couple weeks ago in cleveland and still have not recovered.....
but all in all i thought it was a great performance... any tori anywhere is better than anything else in the world....
Here are some larger photos:
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