Tori Amos

From: Richard Handal 
Subject: Re: No, Thank you
To: [email protected] (Laura)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 03:10:12 -0500 (EST)

>From handal Sat Aug 24 19:04:43 1996
>Subject: At home with Tori in Charlotte
>To: [email protected] (Really Deep Thoughts)
>Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1996 19:04:43 -0400 (EDT)
>Cc: [email protected] (Michael L. Whitehead)

Tori Amos in Charlotte, North Carolina, August 21, 1996
-------------------------------------------------------

I wish I could even begin to convey how juicy this show was, but these
quite inadequate words will have to suffice. Tori sometimes manages to
allow herself to open up and tap into some enormous musical river as it
flows all around her, and the Charlotte show was the best demonstration
I've ever seen of what can happen when great waterfalls of ideas flow
within her and without her.

Tori continues to reach new pinnacles of performance on this concert tour. 
I honestly didn't think she would be able to improve upon the Portland,
Oregon shows, and frankly, I wasn't sure I'd want to be there if she did,
lest I be completely overwhelmed. For this Charlotte show I was shaking so
much that holding my opera glasses still was difficult about a third of
the time. And for some of the show--especially towards the beginning of
it, when I was so totally blind-sided by the intensity--tears filled my
eyes from the sheer beauty and artistry of her playing. 

Steve Caton is playing more inventively as the tour progresses, too. 
There's one point, I believe it's in Little Earthquakes, where he comes up
on a note just as she's fading out on the same note vocally, and he
manages a smooth transition from her voice to his guitar. Pretty swift. 
And wherever she goes on the piano, he's right there with her. Always. 
We're talking some pretty radical tempo changes, here. And playing in an
increasingly dialogic manner with her, too. Good stuff.

I expect that by now Tori's getting tired of starting all the shows with
the same medley of Beauty Queen/Horses, (she doesn't even play Precious
Things all the time anymore, and that had been one of her touchstone songs
of these Dew Drop Inn Tour shows), and she's been experimenting with ways
to embellish Horses a little bit to provide herself and us with added
interest. She continued to do so this night. 

The version she performed of Silent All These Years outshone even the one
I'd seen her do at the earlier of the July 21 Portland shows. Ever so
slightly slowed down, and astoundingly well articulated--pianistically I
mean, mainly--and heartfelt. My best ever, for sure. During the line
"How's *that* thought for you" she opened her eyes wide and tilted her
head toward the audience with a knowing smile. That touch alone was
glorious.

Just recently she's begun to make all these little vocal sounds during
some songs. I wish I could make better notes during the shows, but this is
beyond my ability, I'm afraid. Just sort of scat humming/singing. Nonsense
syllables and sounds which express musical concepts. She did a lot of this
during Little Amsterdam at this show. 

She's turned Little Amsterdam into a true show-stopper--what with the
long-held, loud vocal notes accentuated by hitting the backboard of the
piano with her left fist before the final verse, leading into her almost
crying the words "Little Amsterdam" for the final time, all to a big round
of cheering and applause. And chills down one's spine. 

She's also been turning the line about Rabbit into a repeating energetic,
driving, segment of Cornflake Girl, and has been experimenting with
different variations of doing that, and it's a good time for musical
dialogue with Caton, too. She does this for the last time the line appears
as a way to increase the momentum of the song before wrapping it up. It's
more dramatic that way when it ends. 

On this night, her white lace hair tie had been slipping down more and
more during Cornflake Girl, and just as she finished playing the song it
finally fell out completely, and she left it on the floor behind her, with
her hair remaining down for the rest of the show. 

It's always lovely to hear Past the Mission in concert, and this night's
rendering was especially delicate and moving. Gorgeous. As was Little
Earthquakes, in which a stream of drool slipped out of her mouth toward
the end of the long, continuous vocal part where she can't control it and
keep it in her mouth. 

She's clearly made the decision to go for musical purity over sanitary
behavior, as surely to interrupt her long vocal phrasing would not give us
the shifting canvas for vocal expression she wants in such instances. I
expect she's somewhat embarrassed when it happens, but I agree that not
that many people notice the drool, whereas all of us benefit from the
musical decision to arrange to have those long, seamless vocal passages. I
love that woman. 

One example I can give from this show to describe how much she was opened
up to allow the music to pour through her was something which happened
during Take to the Sky. At one point she was playing a slowly repeated
chord in the upper register of the piano, when she lifted her head
slightly, as if to listen to her muse, and heard a brief musical quotation
of the old Fifth Dimension song Up, Up and Away, and it came out
translated through her fingers and voice. I almost felt I could see the
wheels turning in her head. How much that made me feel I was being carried
along moment to moment during this concert I can't tell you. 

That's what the main goody was for me at this show--how much she was able
to be in one moment after the other, and to convey this so well as to
bring the audience along with her. This is one thing that made Sinatra so
great in concert during his heyday. The audience had total familiarity
with the recordings of the songs, but he would hold notes longer than on
the records, shift his textures around, delay coming in for a vocal line
here and there, run one line into another, etc. Compelling stuff. Tori's
coming into a place where she's able to do this herself with increasing
facility and musicality, and the results take one's breath away.

But there's much more to her than that. Such as when during Crucify she
was singing some textural notes which were lovely, but which didn't convey
the melody when it came time again in the song to do that. What did she
do? To maintain the sensibilities of what she was doing vocally but still
convey the melody, she inserted just a few notes on the piano in an
accented manner right in the middle of the piano accompaniment she was
playing for her textural vocal painting. The way she did this so
effortlessly and gracefully told me I was watching pure musical genius at
work. It was like three layers going on at the same time. Once again, my
jaw dropped open, as once again I was lost in amazement. Wow. 

But then, soon thereafter during the "Please save me" part of Crucify, she
found herself standing near the upper register of Bosey--tuning in again
to an unseen muse while looking skyward--and she began playing and singing
some completely different song. I didn't recognize it, but it was clear to
me that it was an extant song, not just something being constructed on the
spot. She was singing such that I could hear her back in row R with her
head turned away from me, (nothing wrong with row R--her parents were in
row R the next night in Greensboro), even though she was nowhere near the
microphone until the end of this musical digression, when she finally
leaned down over to it, finished this song within a song, and did a
masterful segueway back into the chorus of Crucify, proper. I was totally
blown away. The floor and my jaw were best buds at that point.

Later, just before Pretty Good Year, some girl asked Tori if she would
sign her program, and Tori said that she would. I think Tori meant in a
more generic sense, not that very second, but the girl threw the program
up onto the stage. Tori went over and flipped it to the wings offstage,
and it was then that others thought they might try to follow suit, and the
head security guy Joel raced to the front of the stage and put a quick
stop to such behavior. Tori cringed when he did that, partly in sympathy
for them, I expect, and partly because she knew she'd played a part
herself in bringing that on. Early on into this concert someone asked if
Tori would give her an autograph, and Tori said that "now's not the most
appropriate time." Demanding people there that night.

Joel is totally devoted to protecting Tori, takes it very personally, and
he's very competent in doing so. It's no small relief to me when I see him
leading her onstage and off with his flashlight, and standing just off the
main part of the stage all show long in case anything happens. We all owe
him a huge debt of gratitude, I can assure you of that. This tour would
not be possible in its current form without him there. I wish I could
think of something nice to do for him if I actually manage to make it to
another show, but he's probably already got all the palm oil he needs. 
;-) 

I told Tori the next day in Greensboro that I thought she did better shows
when her parents were in the audience, and she thought that was an
interesting insight that she hadn't heard before. I know I always feel
lots of love and parental pride from her folks flowing out to her when
they're in the audience, and it seems to be reflected back out into the
theater. And her mom sits there with the most enormous grin on her face
all show long. 

Hey Jupiter wrapped up the evening. I've enjoyed all of the other
harmonium organ pieces she's been doing on the tour, but there's something
about the sweetness and sense of longing that comes with Hey Jupiter
that's special for me, and I've missed hearing it when the show comes to
an end.

I almost didn't come to this Charlotte show. I wanted to make a point to
see the birthday show, but when my new boss told me he wanted me to start
the week after, (I told him in the interview that I'd need to have off
August 22 and 23 if he hired me), I couldn't help myself but to leave for
North Carolina a day early and go to Charlotte. I felt an amorphous earthy
intensity surround me as I was driving deeper into North Carolina on
Wednesday: the mists of the Great Smokey Mountains becoming more and more
dense as I continued to push south and westward. I shouldn't have been
surprised to have experienced such an intense and miraculous show. 

Richard Handal


TORI AMOS AT OVENS AUDITORIUM IN CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA 8/21/96
==================================================================

Tori hit the stage at 9:19, left at 11:02
Steve Caton on Guitar indicated by +

Beauty Queen/Horses
Silent All These Years
Blood Roses
Little Amsterdam +
Cornflake Girl +
Past the Mission +
Little Earthquakes +
Take to the Sky
Mother
Crucify
Caught a Lite Sneeze +
Talula + (with much backing tape tracks)
Me and a Gun
************
Let it Be (Beatles)
Mary
************
Pretty Good Year +
Angie
Hey Jupiter + (Tori plays Harmonium organ)