November 29, 2011

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Tori Amos is a fearless explorer, having previously examined such dark topics as adultery, rape, homophobia and death in her rich aural tapestry of rock, electronica, country and Celtic influences.

Her acclaimed 12th studio album, Night of Hunters, released in September, delves deep into mythology and classical music.

Why classical? "I wanted to bring a modern energy to classical music," says Amos, the first woman to simultaneously land in the top 10 of Billboard's classical (No. 1), alternative (No. 5) and rock album (No. 7) charts.

Backing her up is Polish string quartet Apollon Musagète and Berlin Philharmonic principal clarinetist Andreas Ottensamer, who will pile onto her tour bus and join her onstage in Atlanta at Tuesday's first stop of her new U.S.tour. "I'm the bus mom," says the 48-year-old singer. "They're all so young and talented, they're inspiring. This is the first tour for some of them.

Channeling her energies: Before each show, Amos goes unplugged. "I need an hour with no phone, no contact with anyone," she says. "I focus on the energy of the songs that are coming that night and the stories they're telling. Songs are sonic beings of consciousness and I'm a container — they're alive to me. When I go out on stage, I'm bringing their spirits with me."

Modern spin on mythology: For this album, Amos headed to Ancient Ireland, where she delves into Celtic mythology. "The heroine finds herself in a dying relationship. We go on a journey with her as she discovers the end of her relationship and reinvents herself," she says.

"I wanted to show how she was both the hunter and the hunted, and how those two sides exist in all of us." For her whole life, "I've been fascinated with mythology. I can't do math, I can't count, but I can find structure in stories."

When one door shuts: Amos showed mastery over the piano by age 3. When she was 6, she was accepted at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.

To her parents, it seemed that she was born to be a classical pianist. But by 11, it became clear that was not to be. "My father was heartbroken when I got kicked out. The only place that would let me play was this gay bar in Georgetown (in Washington, D.C.)," she says. "And that was the beginning of my professional career. Sometimes, you don't know why certain paths close and others open, but if it feels right, take them."

Memorable moments: The singer has been onstage more times than her terrible math skills can count. But there are a few performances she'll always remember. "The night after Kurt Cobain died, I was playing in a church in Berlin. The emotion was palpable.

I sang Smells LikeTeen Spirit," she recalls. "The next night, in Ireland, everyone started singing along just a few bars into it. I was so amazed, I had difficulty finishing the song. But they all carried on for me, singing in perfect reverence of his memory."

I saw her last night here in NYC, but it was just her and the quartet, no clarinetist. Most of the songs were performed with the quartet and the rest were just Tori on piano and keyboard. Many of the older songs sounded fantastic with their new string arrangements, particularly "Cruel". The only one that seemed a little awkward with only strings was "Big Wheel", but it was still interesting to hear. The audience was as enthusiastic as always with roars erupting as soon as the opening piano notes to classic tracks became recognizable. The one thing though about Tori gigs I don't like is the now common practice to rush the stage before the encore. She doesn't seem to mind though so oh well.

12/02 Setlist:

Shattering Sea

Landslide (Fleetwood Mac cover)*

Suede

(intoroduces quartet)

Way Down*

Cloud On My Tongue

Leather

Putting The Damage On*

Jackie's Strength*

Mr Zebra*

Fearlessness

Maybe California

Star Whisperer

Twinkle*

Gold Dust*

Toast*

Siren

Your Ghost

Nautical Twilight

Cruel

Encore:

A Multitude of Shades (Apollon Musagète Quartett solo)

Baker Baker

Spring Haze

Precious Things

Big Wheel

*Tori solo

115 minutes

[Edited 12/4/11 14:41pm]

sextonseven said:

The one thing though about Tori gigs I don't like is the now common practice to rush the stage before the encore.

People who do that should be shot. I can also say that I severely dislike rabid Tori fans more than rabid Prince fans. P fans are smaller, so when you kick them in the face, they go down. T fans are build like a brick lesbians that have fought in Afghanistan and fight meaner than those cage fighters.

HamsterHuey said:

sextonseven said:

The one thing though about Tori gigs I don't like is the now common practice to rush the stage before the encore.

People who do that should be shot. I can also say that I severely dislike rabid Tori fans more than rabid Prince fans. P fans are smaller, so when you kick them in the face, they go down. T fans are build like a brick lesbians that have fought in Afghanistan and fight meaner than those cage fighters.

I similarly complained about obnoxious Tori fans in the thread about artists' fanbases last month. I had the biggest smile on my face when during the Radio City stop on the Sinful Attraction tour a few years ago, the ushers stopped everyone from getting into the cordoned off first five rows so the stage rushers had to watch the encore from behind the velvet ropes.

The December 3rd show at The beacon Theater in NYC was better than the night before if only for the fact that Tori performed a cover of "Running Up That Hill". I was sitting closer to the stage than the night before on the floor, but to the extreme right so half of the string quartet was obscured from my view which took away from the performance a little. Tori got a little political during the encore talking about the next stop at Washington DC and joking about asking the people in charge there, "do you need a woman to look after you?" haha. "Spark" was the big winner for me in the makeover department this time. I put these performances right up there with the Beekeper and American Doll Posse tours and hope some of the gigs will similarly be officially released in the future.

Setlist:

Shattering Sea

Tubular Bells/God/Running Up That Hill (Kate Bush cover)*

Suede

Velvet Revolution*

Fearlessness

Girl Disappearing

Beauty Queen/Horses*

Icicle*

Lust*

Winter

Spark

Star Whisperer

Running To Stand Still (U2 cover)*

Bells For Her*

Josephine*

Snow Cherries From France

Hey Jupiter

Spring Haze

Cruel

Encore:

China*

A Multitude of Shades (Quartett only)

Leather

Siren

Big Wheel

*Tori solo

120 minutes

Going to the D.C. show tonight, looking forward to it! Will be Tori show #15 for me.

1. September 10, 1999 – Pittsburgh, PA
2. October 2, 2001 – Atlanta, GA
3. October 3, 2001 – Nashville, TN
4. October 4, 2001 – Charlotte, NC
5. October 6, 2001 – Washington, DC
6. October 7, 2001 – Washington, DC
7. October 13, 2001 – Philadelphia, PA
8. November 12, 2002 – Fairfax, VA
9. November 15, 2002 – Camden, NJ
10. August 27, 2003 – Columbia, MD
11. April 6, 2005 – Washington, DC
12. October 26, 2007 – Washington, DC
13. July 31, 2009 – Durham, NC
14. August 1, 2009 – Washington, DC
15. December 5, 2011 – Washington, DC