News: Buffalo News Concert Preview (October 22, 2007)

Jeff Miers previewed the upcoming show at the Shea Performing Arts Center in Buffalo for the Buffalo News. Although he seems to imply that Tori will perform as all five members of the Doll Posse and mistakenly says there will be no opener (Yoav might take exception to that!), it will hopefully bring in some curious souls to the show tonight.

Thanks to Mike Fisher for pointing this out!

Concert preview: Tori Amos is set to take five

Even if you’ve seen Tori Amos on the various local stages she has graced over the past 15 years, you still might not be prepared for the Amos who is slated to show up at Shea’s on Wednesday.

That’s because there will be five Toris, not one, in attendance.

For her recent “American Doll Posse” release, Tori moved away from the piano-centric avant-pop she’s been perfecting from the beginning and toward a more expansive, edgy and guitar-centered sonic approach. It worked quite well on record. Taking that music to the stage, however, requires of the esoteric chanteuse that she fully embrace the theatricality and dramatic sweep of the record, which splits the feminine psyche into five archetypes, all modeled after principal feminine elements found in Greek mythology: Artemis, Persephone, Athena, Aphrodite and Demeter.

Amos will inhabit her own contemporary manifestations of these archetypes throughout the concert, with attendant costume changes underscoring the drama. Bearing all of this in mind, Amos will be performing a longer-than-usual show and won’t be using an opening act. The real news, though, is that Amos is coming ever closer to the core of her life’s work, which has been a committed exploration of the masculine and feminine forces in the modern psyche and in contemporary culture as a whole. Who else can we say that about?

Amos plays Shea’s Performing Arts Center at 8 p.m. Wednesday. Tickets, available through the Shea’s box office or Ticketmaster, are $32.50 to $47.50.

— Jeff Miers