tori came to my school-town on wednesday, 10 april 1996. she donned a rather
conservative outfit, as tori outfits go: pants, a tight shirt and a tank-top
type number over it, and funky high-heeled strappy shoes.
the show opened with dusty springfield's "son of a preacher man" and thousands screamed as the red-haired fairy-eared one appeared and pushed that "g" we all love.... (oh my. i didnt mean it like that! i meant the piano key, silly!) "eeeeeee......eeeeeee....sheeeeee's a beauty queen..." and on into horses. her voice sounded EXtREmely clear and (ill try to express this without exclamation marks) loud. she was very in tune with the audience and funny and more chatty than i expected. someone asked for a story so she told us about a bedtime story neil gaiman had sent her in a package and how she hugs her big bear "fuzzy" every night in a different town. she also stopped the show at one point because she needed lip gloss--that floridian chilly air, i guess.
tori played a lot from _boys_ and _earthquakes_ but only 2 songs from _pink_, including a Raging Rendition of "bells for her" on the harpsichord and "cornflake girl" accompanied by steve caton(?) on the guitar, which was _much_ better (imho) than the light show/pre-recorded music she used on her last tour.
ah! tori... DUG the funky thing with "springtime" and "precious things" had the best and longest and most passionate and wonderful "girrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrL" imaginable, as she ran her hands up her body...girl...every nice girl...i think ill take from mine instead. "caught a lite sneeze" on the harpsichord and then the piano and then (right on time) back to the harpsichord, and even paritally a cappella, with some hand drumming on the piano, particularly kicked ass. everything stopped, mesmerized, as she stared into each pair of our (thousands) of eyes and sang "me and a gun." during "not the red baron," images of planes ran across a triangular screen above and to the left of her piano and the dutch pilots played in the background. "hey, jupiter" on an organ closed the show amazingly! she brought us "sugar" and "case of you" during the encores. early in the show, i became convinced that tori _is_ in fact psychic, as she went into the one song i wanted to hear more than any other: "little earthquakes."
what MAY have been the highlight of the show: during the encore, when hoards of people yelled requests at the stage, tori heard someone yell "still loving you" and she responded "did i hear someone yell 'still loving you'? what the fuck is that?" and improvised a silly song, which might be called 'still loving you'!
tori's musical creativity, breaths, passion, honesty, experimentation, courage, ETC, come through to a great extent on her albums and that is why we all buy the ep's and join silly mailing lists and make web pages and go to the shows in the first place, right? but, i feel like seeing tori Live captures more of what she is about...her energy...
what can i say, but thank you? if you get a chance to see her, in any town even remotely close to where you are, drop everything and drop in because....ahhhh....you Wont be disappointed.