I’ve
recently come back around to being a Tori Amos fan again, in part because she’s
never left the game. Despite
weathering a series of upheavals in an industry that’s less than friendly to
women over thirty, much less fifty, her artistic output continues at a prolific
pace. Tori’s first three albums
have always been special to me, especially her 1992 debut Little Earthquakes, which I’ll forever associate with my sophomore
year of college; that album was released right around the time when my whole
life changed and I decided to move to Boston. Though her music remains ever interesting, Boys for Pele (1996) was the last Tori
Amos album that I really loved in its entirety, and Scarlet’s Walk (2002) was her last album from which I enjoyed the
majority of the songs. On each of
Tori’s seven studio albums released since then, only a handful of tracks have
usually stood out to me, even if I greatly admire her body of music as a whole.
Tori’s
solo show last night at Boston Opera House was the third time I’ve seen her in
concert, and the first time I’ve heard her perform without a band. There’s no doubt that she commanded the
space, both vocally and via the magnetism of her persona. In a tight 90-minute set (two songs
were cut from the encore due to the theater’s curfew…or because Tori took too
long to get onstage), the setlist spanned her entire solo career, though it was
a heavily early-era selection.
That’s totally fine with me since I adore her early albums, but I’m
sure most Toriphiles would be surprised that out of the twenty songs she
performed, eight of them came from the first five years of Tori’s output: a volcanic rendition of
the title number from Little Earthquakes,
three Under the Pink-era songs, and
four tracks from Boys for Pele. Tori knows her audience, and because
Boston’s a college town, she also knows that the folks in the audience who
loved those early albums during their college years are the ones who
jumpstarted her career back then.
After
the standard opener “Parasol,” Tori’s launch into “Caught a Lite Sneeze” set a
thrilling tempo for the crowd. (To
the woman sitting in front of me who blew her nose throughout the entire
song: very literal timing!) “Secret Spell,” a song from 2007’s American Doll Posse that I’d never taken
much notice of before, sounded gorgeous in a live setting and took on an
enchanting layer of allure. I’m
still a bit shocked that my favorite number of the night was “Baker Baker.” While I’ve always found this little
breakup song to be innocuously moving, it acquired mournful new depth for me, even
minus John Philip Shenale’s lush strings arrangement from the album version,
when Tori sang it alone at her piano out on the stage.
“Time / thought I’d made friends with time” among the song’s closing lines
felt like stopping time itself as Tori delivered them.
All
those crying white doves offered Tori an elegant poetic segue into “Black-Dove
(January),” from 1998’s from the
choirgirl hotel, as well as “Black Swan,” a rare 1994 B-side from the
single for “Pretty Good Year.” Unfortunately,
I must concur with some past concertgoers about the pre-recorded backing tracks
that Tori used for both “Cornflake Girl” and “Wedding Day.” They simply didn’t fit the vibe of this
intimate solo show, and they also drowned out Tori’s vocals to some
extent. I think the point of picking
up the pace with backing tracks was to invite the kids to rush down the aisles
to the stage of the opera house; Tori actually waved for everybody to crowd the
stage at the thumping start of “Cornflake Girl,” much to the dismay of the
venue’s frenzied house managers, who kept trying, unsuccessfully, to clear the
aisles until the end of the evening.
“Hey Jupiter” made for a lovely, contemplative closer.
