From The Dent:

http://www.thedent.com./index.php

Posted Sun, Apr 24, 2005 - 6:53pm ET | Tour

I always liked her better solo anyway. I want to hear her play the piano and sometimes the other instruments drown it out a bit. However, some fans will no doubt be disappointed by this news (EWM).

sextonseven said:

I like both, and I've seen her on every tour since UTP, so I've gotten to experience her show a variety of ways. I do, however, prefer her on her own. Something is just a bit more intimate about it.

JediMaster said:

Likewise, I remember seeing her on the Under The Pink tour and she used backing tracks to recreate songs like "God" and "Cornflake Girl" live. It was much easier to get tickets for Tori back then.

i see no reason why she has to have the same drummer in order to tour with a band. surely there are other drummers who can play with her. i wouldn't mind another solo tour; this experience was great! i'm thinking, however, that at the very least she will tour with an accompaniment as she did with pele and pink.

I personally never seen her live but have seen some incrdible TV Performances: Sessions at 54th st & live on Soundstage & I think her music with a band is more powerful.But during these performances she always performs a few of her songs solo on the piano anyways..

SassyBritches said:

I don't think she could/would trust another drummer.

From the Sessions at West 54th interview:

http://www.thedent.com/sessions54.html

DB: The decision to work with a band was that influenced by people doing dance remixes of some of the songs?

T: Well, you know a couple things happened. Before all that happened on Boys for Pele, Manu Katche played drums, you know Manu...

DB: Yeah.

T: ...and he goes to me "listen," I used to record almost all the tracks piano vocal or piano harpsichord live to tape and that all the musicians would play on top of that rhythm because I had kinda trouble, not with all drummers, but I had trouble kinda surrendering that and trying to find you know finding the time when the songs didn't get pushed.

DB: Yeah, and it's a lot to surrender to make room for other people's parts.

T: And I trust this drummer that he knows your internal rhythm and who this, the songs i call them girls, who this particular one is and when she wants to pull back and when she wants to push, you know, I've always said you don't fuck (they bleeped that out) to a metronome... you can bleep that, and the thing is I was going "Manu, I don't think I am ready" and he said "listen I'm not talking about me" and this is why I loved him so much, he said "but you need to find a drummer that you can trust, that for some reason you have that thing." Because he is one of the greatest drummers int he world, and he said "it's not about that, it's about some kind of secret language you have." And Eric Rosse who produced Under the Pink and who I lived with for a long time called me up after I lost the baby and just said "I know a guy." And he said "this is Matt Chamberlain, you've got to play with him." He worked with Matt's band and um Matt came to the Tropics and we rented a drum set and we just jammed and it was like "I know you," and he goes "I know you" and that was it. I think that was a real huge turn around.
[Edited 4/27/05 12:30pm]

PhilG said:

Whoa. We both just mentioned Sessions at West 54th...

I mentioned this a few weeks back, but it's lost in that infinitely long Tori thread I started.

I have kinda mixed feelings about it. I could definitely go for more solo Tori performances in the summer. But I've never seen her with a band. And I feel like I really missed out on the Choirgirl/Venus shows. And I feel like many of the songs from the new album call for a live band arrangement. So I hope that she does get a band together for the 2nd U.S. leg.

GangstaFam said:

You didn't catch Tori on the Strange Little Girls tour?

sextonseven said:

Or Scarlet's Walk?

sextonseven said:

Nope. Not since the "Dew Drop Inn" tour in '96. I don't know what I was thinking.

GangstaFam said:

OMG, you hadn't seen Tori for NINE YEARS? Were you short on cash?

sextonseven said:

No. It's called stupid.

I have some excuses but not very good ones.

In '98, I really wasn't into Choirgirl at the time. It's only recently that it's become a fave. I didn't like the new direction and wasn't too concerned about seeing the show. Plus it was my brother's birthday that day, so already had plans.

Some of the shows after that were in really large venues like the Alanis and Ben Folds shows. The idea of seeing Tori in a sports arena was a total turnoff to me.

And with SLG and Scarlet's Walk, again I wasn't into them at the time. You could say I've been a very fairweather Tori fan until the last couple years. Now I love all of her albums and feel like a fool for missing out.

GangstaFam said:

Well, it doesn't look like she'll be retiring from touring anytime soon so you have time to catch up.

I skipped the tour with Alanis also since Alanis was headlining. I did catch Tori with Ben Folds. I just walked into the venue after his set was over. Both of those tours were at Jones Beach in Long Island (an outdoor ampitheater). It wasn't too bad. The Choirgirl tour was the worst. She played at Madison Square Garden that time (Janet and Madonna usually play there). Fortunately I had floor seats near the front that time.

sextonseven said:

I will never, ever understand Tori opening for Alanis.

And for the 'Sneak Preview Tour' for the Choirgirl album, she played a very small, standing room only club in Detroit. What I wouldn't give now to hear those songs in that setting! Argh!

last time i saw Tori was the Dew Drop Inn Tour. i was still pretending to be straight. LOL.

anyway i lost interest in her soon after Venus. i think she was better when she was just touring by herself

ehuffnsd said:

Did you see her for this tour? You would've loved it.

GangstaFam said:

no... i didn't really have the time to go see her. life is a bit busy with Pride season fast approaching and working for a gay paper

ehuffnsd said:

bummer.

GangstaFam said:

no problem...

marching in Long Beach LA and SD pride this year... whoo hoo

god, i hope so. her songs are so much better w/out all that shit covering up her piano.

isobelfq said:

I've grown to love it all and I really want to see her with her band.

GangstaFam said:

i went to the sneak preview tour and, let me say, the experience was fantastic. interestingly, though, it wasn't because of tori. prince and tori were both touring at the same time, she for her choirgirl preview and prince for his newpowersoul mess. tori tickets and prince tickets were both going on sale the same day, from the same venue, 2 hours apart. i had to pick a line to sleep out in. i honestly had to choose between prince or tori. that's some fucked up shit right there, lol! i went with a friend of mine and we decided hat he would wait for the tori tickets and i would wait for the prince tickets. anyway, we checked out the line for prince (which was at a different location even though it was for the same venue) and it was pretty much non existent. the line for tori, on the other hand, had started with two girls at about 10am the day before the onsale. i hung out with my friend and these two girls (and what would eventually be hundreds of tori fans) until about midnight. the two girls were also in the same boat as my friend and i; we all wanted prince and tori tickets. long story short (though the long version is really ), we all got tickets to both shows and we all went to the shows together. we became good friends and eight years later the four of us are all still very, very close friends. in fact, the two girls and my friend who went with me to wait in line just went to see tori together in philly. the four of us will be having dinner while i visit the east coast next week.

ok, now that i've bored you by gratifying my own need for nostalgia, i'm going to bed.
[Edited 4/27/05 23:40pm]

SassyBritches said:

That's all well and good, but how was the show?

GangstaFam said:

it was brilliant, of course. we were right up in the front row and she opened, i think, with liquid diamonds. don't remember for sure but i know the show was wild. seeing tori rock out with a band was a very different tori experience. the small preview tour was cool but the large arena tour that followed was pretty lame. the performances were great but, really, it was no good seeing tori in such large venues.

SassyBritches said:

I would kill to be able to go back and see that. Was it general admission?

GangstaFam said:

yeah, it was.

SassyBritches said:

I saw her on both of those tours, but when I saw her for Pink, she didn't have an accompaniast (just the aforementioned click-track for "God" and "Cornflake Girl". Otherwise, it was all her on the piano). Did you see an UTP show where she was joined by someone else?

sextonseven said:

Funny thing is, that was my least fave Tori album (still is), but it ties the UTP tour for my favorite show I've seen of her.