Venue: Hala Tivoli, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Concert date: 25.06.2007
Attendance: 600
Ticket price: 35-40 euros
It’s rare for a gig to kick off a little before the announced time. Joshua Radin, a young musician accompanying Tori Amos on some of her European dates, did exactly that. A few minutes before eight in the evening he walks onto the stage with an acoustic guitar in hand, joined by double bassist Jon Flower. Visibly in great spirits, the two play four songs, with plenty of chatter between each one. The warm-up runs a good twenty-five minutes. They play very warm, fully acoustic music that leans heavily on the double bass, which Jon prefers to play with a bow rather than pizzicato. Without that, this music would probably feel a lot more ordinary, but this way it gets a really special flavor. Among other things, Joshua couldn’t hide his enthusiasm for Ljubljana: “we came last night… and went for a walk down by the river… truly beautiful! I seriously think Ljubljana isn’t just one of the most beautiful cities, it’s the most beautiful city in all of Europe! I already wrote that on my forum last night.” Toward the end a young woman joins them on stage, which only adds to the already exceptionally gentle and melancholic music. Then they all leave, but not before Joshua points out that while the stage is being set up for Tori Amos he’ll be signing CDs, which can’t otherwise be bought here yet. And quite a few fans gathered, so his wish may well come true, since he said, “demand that the labels get this album in, that way I can come back for another gig!” Let’s hope something comes of it.
Then comes the long wait for Tori Amos. Even though the stage was ready after about fifteen minutes, the waiting goes on. Apparently that’s a mandatory part of her show. A good half hour passes and the crowd gets restless, but the shouting and loud clapping don’t get the desired results and silence falls again. The whole thing repeats in similar cycles a few more times, until about three quarters of an hour after Joshua Radin left the stage the lights suddenly go out, and not even five seconds later Tori Amos’s three backing musicians are already standing on stage.
She has worked with all three musicians accompanying her on this tour for years: Matt Chamberlain on drums, Jon Evans on bass and Mac Aladdin on electric guitar. As she said later, “I’m truly honored to play with these people.” Without hesitation they launch into some very electrified music, which slowly lures Ms. Amos, or rather Ms. Isabel as it turned out, onto the stage, since she arrived in a blonde wig and a different outfit, in which she performed six songs. Isabel is one of the alter egos that appeared on the album American Doll Posse. After that she transformed into Tori, the redhead we all know.
She came on stage with a lit cigarette (a cigarillo?), walking very slowly and deliberately over-theatrically, in the style of the dames in crime flicks from the days of noir films. She opens with a greeting to the president across the pond, “Yo George!” and his policies: “Is this just the Madness of King George? Yo George! Well you have the whole nation on all fours”.
Everyone on stage seems incredibly relaxed and in a great mood, and they move from one song to the next at a crazy pace, almost without a break between them. The view of the stage was truly spectacular and the sound was top-notch throughout, which in these parts is more the exception than the rule. Above the stage, right above Tori, delicate white curtains rose up, forming a pattern that looked like her hairdo and served as a perfect backdrop for the superb lighting, which ranged from lonely little lights that conjured up a clear starry sky late in the evening, or the reflection of those same stars on the calm surface of a remote sea, to intense, completely wild lights from some setting where an entirely different culture thrives.
When the show reaches about its thirtieth minute, loud electronic beats kick in and develop into a remix of “Professional Widow”, and Tori, or rather Isabel, suddenly leaves the stage. Her three guys stay on, fully immersed in the musical backdrop, while the crew quickly swaps in the electric keyboards, which Tori plays alongside or simultaneously with her faithful Bosendorfer piano, along with an organ. A few moments later Tori reappears in a dazzling gold-red-green dress. Right after the first three notes of the opening bar of the recent hit “Big Wheel”, the audience comes alive so much that it leaves its seats in perfect sync and crowds up against the stage as close as it could get, since the security guys were doing their job well. Tori, visibly beaming, shares half of her provocative and super-popular verse with the crowd; Tori: “M.I.L.F.” crowd: “Don’t you forget!”. From that point on, the excitement just kept climbing steeply. Next they play “Crucify”, her first and certainly one of her biggest hits, followed by “Cornflake Girl” and “Caught A Lite Sneeze”, which also stoke the feverish atmosphere even further.
When I saw Tori in Vienna years ago on the Strange Little Girls tour, the excitement was nowhere near this, and the song selection was also a lot more “for die-hard fans only”. Quite a contrast to today!
The atmosphere was incredible through the whole show, even though there was hardly any talking to the crowd, apart from this: “You’re absolutely amazing! It is really magnificent! We are very honoured to play here for you. I could play all night long until I just go poop!”. Well, besides that, the smile on her face said more than some silly line like “where are your hands?” or the like. You also can’t ignore her constant flirting with the crowd and/or the photographers, who got their five minutes right during “Big Wheel”. All the while she grinned in the most seductive way, legs spread wide as she played, hips swaying mischievously. Quite often she also stood with her back to the audience, one foot on the piano stool, barely hinting at a dance, and toward the end of the show she also played piano and sang standing up.
Soon after, Tori is left alone on stage and decides to take the whole thing into somewhat more intimate and mellow territory, but just as thrilling. The highlight of this solo part was undoubtedly the stunning rendition of “Winter” from her first album Little Earthquakes (1992). And needless to say, the crowd knew all the lyrics and faithfully murmured along with her. Wonderful.
The trio returns and together they play the last three songs of the official part of the set, two from earlier albums, “Northern Lad” from From The Choirgirl Hotel (1998) and “God” from Under The Pink (1994), which once again pushes the hall’s thermometer to boiling point. They close with a song from the latest album, whose lyrics circle back to the beginning of the concert, since it’s again a bit angrier than the preceding songs, namely “Code Red”: “Victory is an elusive whore. She is as easily mine. As she is yours”. This time victory was on the side of everyone present, those on stage and those next to it.
The band leaves and the crowd starts urging them back, which was of course planned, since Tori’s personal bodyguard immediately runs to the edge of the stage and tells the security guys they can let people get right up to the stage. Right after that everyone is back on stage, and everything that had happened up to then in terms of sheer energy was topped in the encore. They play “Precious Thing” and “Bouncing Off Clouds”, both extremely fierce and unruly, as if it really would never end. And if the first encore was planned, the second probably wasn’t, but it was a must, there was no other way. The quartet returns again and starts right where they left off. “The Waitress”, a song about workplace hatred that outdoes itself and turns into a wish to kill out of jealousy. Well, if on the album (Under The Pink) the song sounds like it’s sung by a somewhat hysterical, not entirely together person, here it sounded like it came from a far more psychopathic one, whose calmness is irritating in itself and in the end comes across as even more dangerous, though much more latent. The very last song was a wonderful rendition of “Hey Jupiter” (Boys For Pele, 1996), which Tori played the whole time on piano and organ simultaneously. Obviously, after all these years of playing it, the song has taken on a completely new life that has really enriched it.
Then Tori, Matt, Jon and Steve hug once more and bow to the crowd, and from here on there really didn’t seem to be much room left to go anywhere. A truly excellent finish to an excellent show of more than two hours. Definitely one of the better musical events that have shaken, or will shake, our parts, even though it was largely overlooked in terms of attendance.
PHOTOS: Boštjan Malavašič
Setlist
01.Yo George
02.Sweet Dreams
03.Theme From Exorcist
04.Almost Rosey
05.Devils And Gods
06.In The Spring Time Of His Voodoo
07.Professional Widow
08.Big Wheel
09.Crucify
10.Take To The Sky
11.Cornflake Girl
12.Honey
13.Caught A Lite Sneeze
14.»new wine«
15.Winter
16.Cooling
17.The Beekeeper
18.Northern Lad
19.God
20.Code Red
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21.Precious Things
22.Bouncing Off Clouds
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23.Waitress
24.Hey Jupiter
Photo gallery
