From: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org (precious-things-digest) To: precious-things-digest@smoe.org Subject: precious-things-digest V8 #67 Reply-To: precious-things@smoe.org Sender: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org 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 Saturday, March 15 2003 Volume 08 : Number 067 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: NYC RCMH Night 2 Review [noam tchotchke ] Re: Baker Baker Singers Singers [Talula1982@aol.com] pittsburgh post-gazette concert preview [noam tchotchke ] recordings [Ange816@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 09:53:15 -0500 From: noam tchotchke Subject: Re: NYC RCMH Night 2 Review one time at band camp, Richard Handal said: >This constant shifting of expression based on how her day went and other >things which combine to put her head in a particular place is what makes >one concert different from another more than the changing setlist does, >personalizes it, and places it more in the moment. then you are a better listener than me. or, rather, a different one. i'll notice differences in musical arrangements and such much more often than i'll notice differences in tori's mood -- unless she translates her daily experience to the show in the most painfully obvious of ways. strange as it may seem, i just don't think i'm plugged into her in the same emotional way that most people are. not that i don't try, mind you, but i just don't listen to her in that sort of nuanced way. this is not to say that a changing setlist is crucial to my enjoyment of a show -- i get lost in the songs, no matter how many times she's played them - -- but it certainly is a factor in how i feel about a show overall (hey, i can be illogical too!). she has a huge arsenal of songs to choose from and knowing that influences my reaction to a show, especially if it seems to me she is just sticking with old standards or a small subset of songs which form the core of a show. i recognize that's an unfair statement since i know she cooks up the setlist at, more or less, the last minute but i can't help but feel that she's being "lazy" (for lack of a better word) when she plays three shows in a row in new york city and, although she mixed things up pretty well from night to night, she didn't really extend herself much, i thought. speaking of new york, i promised brian (and myself) i would post some thoughts about the three shows. thursday's show was really good. i was sitting first row, dead center in the third mezzanine so i had a perfect, if somewhat distant, view of the stage. the sound, however, wasn't distant at all. i was basically level with the top of the arrays and the sound was amazingly pristine -- at least until the left speakers started acting up. aside from that, the sound at all three radio city shows was the best i've heard anywhere on this tour -- i think that space was the first on the tour which actually lived up to the capabilities of the sound system they are using. highlights from thursday were "take to the sky" and "precious things", which were easily among the best performances of them i've heard. the solo set of songs -- "winter", "icicle" and "landslide" -- were also very poignant (even if "winter" was an obvious choice of songs, given the half-foot of snow that had fallen across the region that afternoon). i also finally got to hear "spark" and "talula". the former was a little lethargic but the latter was nifty-keen. "strange" and "honey" were also welcome additions, though neither were particularly better than average that night. friday, i was sitting in the right orchestra. the sound was a bit muddier down on the floor but still very good. the set was quite different from the night before but, other than "father lucifer", didn't really contain many songs that i really enjoy. highlights were "your cloud" (a favorite of mine from the new record), and, of course, the debut of "father lucifer" -- which, in this incarnation, is very loungish and groovy. i thought the solo songs were disappointing -- i don't really care for "leather" or "jackie's strength" and her performance of "abraham, martin & john" was surprisingly lackluster. "bliss" was strong and, i finally came to terms with "crucify", a song which i've had a love/hate relationship with this tour (it's really long, tipping the scales at close to ten minutes, but i really dig the way she's been "catharsing" in its coda). "take to the sky" showed up again and was good but not as good as the night before. saturday, i was back in the mezz. this show didn't seem to great to me. i know i wasn't mentally all there -- after two late nights in nyc, i was tired and, since i was travelling to this show with some other people, we drove down instead of taking the train. so i was in a fouler mood for a variety of reasons. the show started off good -- "little amsterdam" was nice and "spark" was a lot more energetic than thursday's performance -- but i kinda phased out by the time the solo songs came along. "cooling" was okay and "cool on your island", which she prefaced with an explanation about how she has come to accept, partly at the urging of her fans, that y kant tori read is not a totally bad record, was okay but not stellar but "silent all these years" totally lost me. it's just not a song i connect with (as we found out later, she played that instead of "gold dust" which i would have rather heard though i dunno if it would have changed my impression of the show since, blasphemous as it may sound, i don't connect with "gold dust" either!). i tuned out until "god" woke me up from my stupor -- this was easily the most powerful rendition i've heard of that song. "father lucifer" was noticeably tighter and "talula" was rollicking good. i lost touch during the rest of the encores though -- "tear in your hand" and "taxi ride" both cause my ears to glaze and "somewhere over the rainbow", however poignant, just isn't a song i really care for. so, i dunno. i'm certainly glad that i went to all three shows and i'd not hesitate to do them again. but i can't help but feel a little disappointed by them taken together. it's an irrational thing really. the shows were good, but new york city is a hard place to play and it's not a city where you can really go out on a limb and i think that's what i was hoping for. anyone else at these shows care to comment? woj ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 12:02:34 -0500 From: Talula1982@aol.com Subject: Re: Baker Baker Singers Singers It's kind of odd that this was a recent topic. I went to the Grand Rapids show Wednesday night and some girl behind me sang half the songs in a voice that was just loud enough to be annoying. Personally, I don't like sing-a-long people because I paid to hear Tori sing, not some random girl. I also had to put up with listening to some girl fighting with her male companion. By the way, the Grand Rapids show was great even though my seats were kind of shady. She sang soem songs I totally didn't expect, including "Putting the Damage On", "Strange Little Girl" and "Riot Proof". "Take to the Sky" also gave Tori a chance to rock out hardcore. It was a lovely show. I'd go into big details, but I have to go class. Julie ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 13:01:39 -0500 From: noam tchotchke Subject: pittsburgh post-gazette concert preview Music Preview: Tori Amos takes a 'Walk' through America Friday, March 14, 2003 By Scott Mervis, Post-Gazette Weekend Editor The only pyrotechnics at a Tori Amos show come from the flame-haired singer-pianist and her hot little rhythm section. But Amos, who arrives at the A.J. Palumbo Sunday, likens her concerts to the tribal fires of primitive or ancient civilizations. "The idea is that there's a metaphorical fire that you come to every night, like you would have in the old days," she says. "You come to ceremony and bring with you from the day, your troubles, information you've heard, misinformation you've heard, to try and make some kind of sense of what's going on in the world, like they did in the old days, but we just have a lot more information -- or misinformation -- thrown at us." So don't search the Internet in advance for the set list. Every night is going to be a new experience, she says, beginning with a Wampum prayer. "I don't know what it is until about 30 minutes before the show, depending on the news on the wire, depending on the letters backstage, and I string the songs together based on the information to then play it out symbolically through the music." More than likely, Amos' current shows are focused around her seventh and latest record, "Scarlet's Walk," another outing that can carry listeners away with its gorgeously flowing melodies. Thematically, Amos describes it as a sonic novel that explores America in the wake of 9/11 from the point of view of a character named Scarlet who encounters other strong female characters on her trek. " 'Scarlet's Walk' is very much about the inside affecting the outside, the outside affecting the inside," Amos says, speaking from a coffee shop in a Detroit mall. "We're personally involved in our nation. We're all personally involved, if you're half awake. What I'm seeing across the nation now is people refusing to turn it over to our leaders anymore, because the trust is gone. No one is quite sure what the agenda is anymore; the people I'm seeing are getting involved in ways I haven't seen in a long time." Amos, who was in New York on 9/11 and now splits time between England and South Florida, saw a profound spiritual change in the way Americans relate to America. "A lot of people didn't feel anything of America as a soul, like the Native Americans have been nurturing since the beginning. But when the twins went down, for the first time, for many of us, she became alive, bleeding, burning. And in the death, all the human death, the soul of the country was alive, crying out. It's very different from 'We are Americans, these are our forefathers, the patriarchy.' What about the land? The mother land. Our divine mother. You know what, the French understand this. They understand that France is different than the French and the governing body. Same with the Irish. We haven't had a relationship like that with our land." As for Scarlet, Amos says, "the whole journey is that she becomes a physical mother and realizes, in the end, that to mother her daughter, to leave her anything, she has to mother her spiritual mother, which is America, personified by Amber Waves and the other women on the record." What "Scarlet's Walk" doesn't do is reveal itself as an obvious concept album. Amos handles everything with a subtle touch and a typically abstract lyrical approach. Amos says people can enjoy the album on any level they choose. "It's none of my business how people listen. I'm not dictatorial, like, 'Listen to it like this.' Maybe I was like that years ago. It's none of my business what people do with the music. They have their own relationship with the songs. I'm the librarian. The songs work as individual short stories. But this is a narrative and if you want to look at it like that, it works on that level, too. I wrote a work that if you want to take it as far as you can, the blueprints and architecture are there." Not coincidentally, this is Amos' first record of new material since she became a mother to Natashya Lorien, who is now 2 and with her on tour. Needless to say, motherhood has made a big impact on the singer-songwriter. "I guess in ways that I can't even measure it, because I changed so completely," Amos says. "Mainly because I guess I was ready for it. I've had a few miscarriages and the loss of it was humbling, how fragile life is. By the time I became a mother I sort of put being a mother first. While I was pregnant, I played a lot of music but I stopped working. I had to change my life and my rhythm, because I couldn't hold life inside. My pace was not right. And so I just devoted everything to carry this life." Amos, whose work has looked inward for much of her career, already sees that being a mom and a mature woman could change all that. "It is looking more outward now," she says. "I think maybe that's what happens when you're looking outward to make decisions for your child. Before, when you're a writer, a poet in your 20s, like 'Little Earthquake,' you're finding out who you are. Once you're 40 you kind of need to know that. There needs to be an exchange for the lines on your face." Scott Mervis can be reached at smervis@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2576. INSET: Tori Amos WITH: Rhett Miller. WHERE: A.J. Palumbo Theater, Uptown. WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Sunday. TICKETS: $37.50; 412-323-1919. ARTIST'S SITE: www.toriamos.com DETAILS: WYEP-FM (91.3) will present a live broadcast of a discussion and interview with Tori Amos from a private, sold-out event at Club Cafe at 1 p.m. Sunday. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 16:46:21 EST From: Ange816@aol.com Subject: recordings Does anyone have any recordings for any of these shows: SLG tour - West Palm Beach SW tour - Melbourne SW tour - Jacksonville If anyone has any of these recordings email me please! *Angela* ------------------------------ End of precious-things-digest V8 #67 ************************************