News: Sydney Morning Herald Concert Review (Sept. 14, 2007)

Kelsey Munro reviewed the first show at the Opera House for the Sydney Morning Herald, recognizing Tori’s skill but still not quite being convinced by the act…

Extraordinary, if you like that sort of thing

Tori Amos, The Opera House, Friday, September 14
Reviewed by Kelsey Munro
September 17, 2007

Tori Amos is an acquired taste. Reminiscent, say, of Kate Bush or Ani DiFranco – highly eccentric singer-songwriters who express their individual and particularly feminine world views – she tends to polarise listeners.

Amos retains a devoted fan base (this sold-out show was the first of three Opera House gigs) and she has created terrifically successful pop music.

Her 22-year career has produced mainstream hits, including such haunting, interesting songs as Cornflake Girl, Caught a Lite Sneeze and Crucify. But, as this show demonstrated, she can also be completely baffling and rather irritating.

Backed by a powerful three-piece band, Amos came on stage wearing a yellow dress, black PVC tights, high heels and a long, black rock-mullet wig. She mounted the piano stool and waggled her behind at the audience. This, as any fan will explain, is Amos in character as Pip, the most aggressive of the five alter egos created for her latest album, American Doll Posse.

It’s a serious enterprise – her last few albums have involved some sort of imaginative character concept – and perhaps an interesting one. Unfortunately, the wig left me unable to get Nigel Tufnel from Spinal Tap out of my mind.

The high drama of the three- or four-song stretch that ensued – playing the grand piano kneeling on the floor, with vaguely obscene pelvic thrusts over the piano stool and an extended middle finger for the character’s finale – did little to budge that distraction. A mini Stonehenge wouldn’t have been out of the ballpark.

Yet after this heavy rock opener Amos came back on stage, possibly as herself, or maybe as Ariel from The Little Mermaid, with long red hair (a wig?), resplendent in a green, sequinned jumpsuit.

A second piano was backed up to the grand piano so Amos could do her favourite trick of playing both at once, straddling her seat. Still, her piano playing was the most beautiful and restrained part of the set. She has an extraordinary singing voice but uses it with little restraint, always close to full-blown dynamics, even in delicate solo songs.

It was a long set with two encores, including the evident crowd favourites Hey Jupiter and Precious Things. Amos’s music remains a taste I’ve yet to acquire.