From: owner-precious-things-digest To: precious-things-digest@smoe.org Subject: precious-things-digest V1 #85 Reply-To: precious-things@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-precious-things-digest Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "precious-things-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. precious-things-digest Monday, 20 May 1996 Volume 01 : Number 085 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Tori in New York Tori in Springfield Mass. Re: Chuck's reviews Tori in Springfield Mass. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: chuck and joe Date: Sun, 19 May 1996 13:45:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Tori in New York wednesday 5/15 theatre at madison square garden (3rd of 3 shows that week) beauty queen / horses yes anastasia caught a lite sneeze tear in your hand cornflake girl pretty good year leather precious things not the red baron sugar angie talula me and a gun over the rainbow baker baker winter in the springtime of his voodoo professional widow hey jupiter i must admit that i went to the show with great trepidation. knowing the size of the venue and the tenacity of tori's nyc fans brought fears of screaming alternateens to mind. fortunately it wasn't as bad as i'd expected...although periodic interruptions did occur, with tori handling most of them herself, and quite well at that. of course even tori couldn't get them to stay quiet...several times as she was telling a story (and she spoke quite a bit!) she'd stop and admonish someone for screaming out requests. even when she said "shut up i'm telling a story" they didn't stop!!! a brief(!) rundown: b queen/horses - began (of course) with screaming.... tori's hand motions to shut up got the audience quiet though and b queen was wonderful as was the segue into horses anastasia was a shock to hear next and tori played a shorter version cutting some of the intro and repeats at the end caught a lite sneeze was phenomenal! the counterpoint of the harsichord and caton's guitar was trance-inducing. kind of like an ambient version with all the swirly stuff and keyboard repetition. the change from piano back to harpsichord was unfortunatley marred by screaming. tori then said that she realized that a lot of folks had been to all three shows and singled out a guy named frankie that had apparently made his presence known. she then announced that this show would feature lots of "girls that haven't made an appearance yet, since some of the others were hogging the spotlight"! and she went right into "tear in your hand"... it was a revelation of a performance and caton's guitar strumming worked very well indeed. cornflake girl was more enjoyable than expected thanks to that infernal backing track having been canned! caton's playing was simple chords as a foundation for tori's piano embellishments, which pretty much followed the recorded version. i too, like woj, would like to hear her improvise a bit more on this song, but i wonder if maybe she feels that this is what was written and it was not meant to be for improvisation (as in a classical concerto where the soloist is given a "cadenza" on which to improvise). the way she and caton switched rhythms on the "rabbit" part was pretty cool, with tori taking the 6/8 over caton's straight four the first time around, and each doing the opposite at the reprise. pgy, leather and precious things were perfunctory performances, with the "grrrrrl" being quite annoying. i thought i saw "y kant tori read" surface at that point! at some point in here she mentioned that dopey the dwarf was dead, and related how in connecticut the light guys were holding him for ransom and the sound guys (who she said could barely put on their own socks) couldn't come up with the necessary 10,000 snickers bars for ransom... so they killed dopey! she then introduced marcel, who came onstage dressed as snow white! hysterical! not the red baron was wonderful! her performance was much more moving than on bfp. next was sugar, prefaced by the story of how "you girls know how it is... after nine months a guy should know that you take sugar in your tea...". the vocal on this was so different from what she's done before that the song was unrecognizable without the chorus of "sugar, he brings me sugar...". it was beautifully performed. ..as was angie, which was another surprise. talula started wonderfully with tori singing the new "tornado" part a capella. and it continued great until the infernal backing track came in and ruined it. yuck. i was really bummed because i love that song and it sounded great with just harpsichord and guitar. me and a gun was chilling as usual, but constantly interrupted by the coughing masses... and when it was over most of the audience sat there waiting for the next number. it was strange, almost as if no one realized the show was over! no big applause or anything... very weird. so she slinked back onstage and went right into "somewhere over the rainbow" which was nicely done. i like her whisper/breath style but it was used a little too much on this song. as she finished people were screaming out requests for "winter" and tori said "winter's backstage drinking a marguerita". this only made them scream more... baker baker suffered the same thing. it was almost like she was really trying to get the crowd to hush by singing so quietly you could barely hear her... this time she left and the crowd went wild. she came back on and did winter. fortunately the vision i had of 5000 people singing along didn't happen, and it was a memorable performance of the song. voodoo got the crowd clapping along until tori's piano playing freaked out everyone's sense of rhythm! nice solo by caton here. she then asked for frankie and told him that this next song was for him. she turned to the harmonium and started playing "professional widow". it was quite a shock! she sang the first verse and chorus, then switched to the first verse of "amazing grace". she then went into a vocal improv in which she was almost screaming about "you come and you come and you come over and over and over..." and went right into "give me peace, love, etc...". it was very intense and captivating. she followed with a very moving interpretation of jupiter, again on the harmonium, and the show ended. overrall i give this show an 8.5 for performance but a 3 for the crowd... this is getting way too long so i'll post about the incredible, mind-boggling, historic tori show in springfield mass seperately! chuck ------------------------------ From: chuck and joe Date: Sun, 19 May 1996 13:45:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Tori in Springfield Mass. Tori Amos 3/17 Symphony Hall, Springfield, Mass. beauty queen / horses leather blood roses little amsterdam doughnut song mother precious things cloud on my tongue (!) let it be (!) not the red baron cornflake girl pretty good year caught a lite sneeze me and a gun twinkle winter in the springtime of his voodoo years may go by (?) honey song for eric joe and i went to this show expecting it to be more like a usual torishow: smaller venue (about 2000), quieter crowd (hopefully), non-urban, therefore more experimental song-wise. but getting inside and seeing that we were the oldest people in the entire audience, and that the majority were under 21, put those thoughts of another constantly interrupted show back in mind... much to our shock, the instant that tori hit the piano keys, the crowd quieted... into UTTER SILENCE! nearly the entire show was pin-drop quiet! this was more like what we were used to!...a stunned, captivated audience. and tori fed off of the vibe all evening, putting on the BEST performance that i've experienced since seeing her for the first time years ago. beauty queen was incredible. horses was incredible. the show started as she surely intended it to... a single note from silence, a melody growing gradually note by note, perfection segueing into horses. leather was done quite teasingly, with a more sexy, flirtatious touch than previously. this made the honky-tonk section stand out even more. and to whip around to the harpsichord and start blood roses was an excellent contrast! and it was a nasty, wicked performance. tori then asked if anyone sees frankie to tell him that she saw him running alongside her limo with a winnie the pooh and that she says sorry and thank you... little amsterdam was rrrreeeeaaaalllll slow... a nice mix of ominous and sensual in her voice on this one. caton's playing was superb here. doughnut song was very touchingly done, with a new intro. mother came as a complete surprise! precious things was not as grandstandingly done as in new york (she didn't grab her breasts this time). cloud on my tongue totally shocked me. it's one of the songs from utp that i've always wanted to hear live...and it was fantatstic! the lighting guys were clueless as to what to do on this one! joe and i were talking to the crew before the show, admiring the mac 9500s running things. i asked them what they do when she just switches the songs around, since every song is timed for the lighting cues and then all stored on their computers. the guys said they just try to follow her manually. well it was obvious that this song caught them off guard! let it be was another shock. she looked as if she was trying to get the audience to sing along, but they weren't going for it. i think they were kind of surprised that she'd play a beatle song. either that, or they'd never heard it before... not the red baron was stunning. the intro was very prokofiev-ian in style, all dramatic, crashing chords. marcel's voice was mixed perfectly in, and her singing was heart-wrenching. all on a song that sits so unassumingly on the album. cornflake girl was excellent! pretty good year was prefaced with a variation of the story of greg, this time painting him as more of a loser. in effect she was intending the song as saying "get a life", and it came across that way tonight, angry and disdainful, but poignant as well. caton's cello-like effects were beatiful. caught a lite sneeze blew me away. the intended effect switching from piano to harpsichord was acheived, as her voice faded from the p.a. and you could hear her sing un-aided by microphones for that few seconds... it sent chills! i want a recording of this version! it was hard to believe that me and a gun was the most intense version i've heard... it was utterly gut-wrenching, as if everything was being re-lived again in those very moments. i've seen her perform the song almost a dozen times; in danbury i was not more than 10 feet from her as she sang it... and i'd say that it hasn't affected me anywhere near as much as it did in springfield. i couldn't applaud when she finished. twinkle was a pleasant surprise as the first encore. again it worked as i'm sure she intended, as kind of a bookend with beauty queen. and again done in total silence. winter was as gorgeous and touching as ever. second time out, she and caton launched into voodoo. this was the only song that i thought was played better in new york, i think because the crowd was more boisterous there and the song almost calls for that. she then started playing a small piano figure over and over. someone yelled for upside down and she said "b-sides are coming, but i gotta do this first", and she played a song i've never heard or heard of. the tag line was "years may go by". it was a beautiful little song, almost sounding as if written by a young tori. anyone have any idea what it was? a cover perhaps? and when i saw caton holding his acoustic guitar i thought of meth... and then they played honey... phenomenal is all i can say. and then she took the microphone and sang song for eric a capella... overrall performance: 11 on a scale of 10 chuck ------------------------------ From: MATH TRIED ERR Date: Sun, 19 May 1996 15:49:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Chuck's reviews Hi! Must be something about Saturdays. Or good crowds. Or both. So she did "Song For Eric" again, eh? And a cappella this time... I wonder what's up with that. I would have killed to be in that audience... or at least to have been at the show in NYC on Wednesday, for nothing else but to hear "Professional Widow" done live, and on the harmonium, no less. Argh. For the first time, I may be on the lookout for bootlegs. This is serious, folks. :P Bought the BfP songbook today, only because I'm a completist. There's nothing of interest here -- no b-sides, no interesting stories, just reproductions of the liner notes (no new pictures) and what look to be pretty basic transcript- ions of the music. They should have waited a while to release it, so they'd have time to make it worth the money. To those who are wondering what Tori was talking about when she mentioned that Dopey was dead in NYC: last Saturday night during the second show in New Haven, Tori read a ransom note from Sound to Light. Sound had the 7 dwarves (in the form of plastic dolls), and unless Light gave them 10,000 frozen Snickers bars (king sized) by 9:15 PM, "Dopey gets it". Apparently, Dopey got it. It was pretty damn funny. :> Meredith meth@delphi.com "honey we're recovering Christians" ------------------------------ From: FroggyJen@aol.com Date: Sun, 19 May 1996 18:32:36 -0400 Subject: Tori in Springfield Mass. PLEASE if anyone has / finds a copy of Tori's recent show in Springfield, Mass., I REALLY need it. PLEASE. Thanks, Jen ------------------------------ End of precious-things-digest V1 #85 ************************************