Last night at Massey Hall in Toronto, Tori Amos gave a concert that proved she is one of the best performers around. Few people can command the stage like she can while seated all evening at a piano. Unlike some of her concerts throughout the years, no other musicians accompanied her: we got just pure, unadulterated Tori. She sang a host of well-known and lesser-known songs with intensity and finesse. I have heard Tori a dozen times or more over the decades. Most concerts have been exceptional. A couple have been decent or marred by muddy sound. Once I actually walked out of a concert. But the current Native Invader tour demonstrated she is at the top of her game, better than ever.
The concert touched on a few themes. She made her political or cultural points without didacticism. In tribute to Halloween, she opened with an extended version of “i i e e e” that was even creepier than the original. Later she sang the hauntingly beautiful “Black Dove (January)” (in that tiny kinda scary house by the woods, by the woods, by the woods…). “Little Amsterdam” acquired another rich layer of meaning in this time of Black Lives Matter. She sang it with an ominous undertone that outshone the recorded version. She thanked Canadians for being “the wiser, older sister” to their troubled U.S. sibling. An idiosyncratic version of “America the Beautiful followed,” which naturally segued into “Amber Waves.”
Tori Amos uses distinctive techniques to be expressive
Being bandless allowed Tori the freedom to pepper songs with dramatic pauses and hesitations that make her solo concerts so distinctive. In the past she has punctuated songs by knocking on the piano. Now she takes the keyboard lid and slams it back at the climax of certain songs, a shocking but effective tool. She pivots seamlessly between her Bosendorfer piano on one side and her electronic keyboard on the other, sometimes playing both simultaneously, a technique she’s had many years to perfect. Her singing uses breathiness, growls, whispers, falsetto, gulps and other sounds with great expressivity. Tastefully applied echo and reverb added even more depth.
At times, she sent a chill up my spine, a sure sign that I’m having a transformative musical experience. She knows how to punctuate a song with dramatic gestures: a raised hand, a sly look at the audience, the head thrown back, arms raised slowly as the final chord rings out. Flawless sound quality and effective lighting helped make the experience sublime.
