Live Review

Tori Amos - QPAC Concert Hall, Friday 21st November 2014

Twenty years ago, Tori Amos strode onto the platform of the Concert Hall in Brisbane, showing a brash confidence in the way she owned the performance space, exuding a potent sexual energy and riding the piano stool as if it was a buckin’ bronco in a rodeo.

Since that somewhat quaintly timed Sunday afternoon gig in December 1994, she’s come back to own that platform subsequently three times with the same energy and power with nothing more than a mighty Bösendorfer grand piano and one other electronic keyboard often playing them simultaneously (with a 2007 diversion to the nearby soulless Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre with a cracking great band and an awesome pop/rock show.)

With Tori Amos, a concert is not merely a gig that trots out “the hits” and two thirds or so of the current release that’s being flogged by the record company. Her choice of set list is eclectic, varying from show to show (which is why her die-hard fanatics will follow her from show to show) and even on the night of the gig last minute changes and substitutions or improv moments can appear. With a back catalogue of 14 studio albums, there is much material to mine and in Brisbane, she essayed something (even the brief “Posse Bonus” from the 2007 “American Doll Posse” album) from each of those albums, except for her 2009 song cycle album “Night Of Hunters” (though “Carry” from that disc was scheduled to be in the encore, but changed at the last minute to the unforgettable “Winter” from her first solo album “Little Earthquakes”) and her seasonal album of the same year “Midwinter Graces”.

This being the “Unrepentant Geraldines” tour, with any other artist you might expect a slab of tunes from that current release – not with Tori. She gave the audience just one track from the album, the poignant “Weatherman”. As is her wont, she dips into her own vast back catalogue and variations on another’s theme, breaking out Velvet Underground’s “New Age” (from her 2001 covers album “Strange Little Girl”) which was part of her “Lizard Lounge” set which ignited the second half of her performance the way a smouldering ember will turn a wastepaper basket into a blazing inferno. “Fast Horse”, “Sugar” and the emotionally enthralling “Blood Roses” concluded the main part of the show each raising the tempo, the emotion and breaking finally like a wave crunching down on the shoreline.

This is not to say the performance was slow to get going, “Parasol” (from the challenging 2005 “The Beekeeper” album) and a personal favourite “Spark” from the 1997 “From The Choirgirl Hotel” launched the journey with a blast, everything note perfect, pitch perfect and a binding connection with the audience that didn’t need constant conversation between songs as some artists lapse into, to stretch out the evening. Combining her 1994 single “God” (from “Under The Pink”) with Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” and then alternating verses/chorus from her song and Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” was an impressive feat. Given that Kate Bush returned to performing live this year after a 35 year absence and is of a similar age to Tori Amos, a nod to an equally eclectic keyboard based female performer was preciously wonderful.

If there was anything of a less than impressive turn, it was probably the first encore song, her major hit single, “Cornflake Girl” (the only song my companion at the gig knew prior to coming along). In 1994, she played that and “God” with a pre-recorded studio backing, because as she said then “…if I don’t, the audience wouldn’t recognize them.” This time around, she didn’t need that with “God” and created a masterpiece, with “Cornflake Girl” she had the recorded accompaniment which seemed to sit oddly with the rest of the evening. However, the audience couldn’t care less. They were on their feet and screaming loudly. (Which was another slight annoyance – every single song was greeted by those “down front” with a cacophony of screams and cheers. Sure, the excitement of a gig like this should allow the audience to release their emotion and pent-up energy in a vocal fashion, but every single song? #Srsly?)

Tori Amos undertook this tour, partly in response to a challenge from her 13 year old daughter, Tash Hawley (who has contributed vocals to her last two original work studio albums) to not succumb to the “too old to perform” criticism. With her long, almost straight rich auburn hair, and an outfit of basic black from chic eyeglasses to impressive heels via a long sleeved top and slacks, she is anything but “too old to perform”. Even during “Josephine” when a momentary loss of lyrics led her not to stop but to continue playing, improv-ing some lyrics on ageing, menopause and keeping the certainty that as long as she recognized the keyboard she was on, and what the piano beside her was for, she’d be right. And in good Strine, “she’ll be right, alright”, without missing a beat, she worked her way back to the missing lyric and powered on.

Twenty years on from that spellbinding gig on a Sunday afternoon in December 1994 to the eve of S. Cecilia’s Day (the Christian martyr and patron saint of music, often depicted auburn haired) in November 2014, she is still riding that piano stool like it’s a wild animal being tamed by her delicious melodies and drawing such sounds out of her keyboards that mean she can own the platform of the Brisbane Concert Hall for as long as she wants and a fourth visit to it in future would not be a moment too soon.

(Blair Martin)

(Photos from www.facebook.com/toriamos)

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