News: Montreal Gazette Concert Review (October 22, 2007)

The following review of the October 21st concert in Montreal appeared in the October 22nd edition of the Montreal Gazette.

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Singer behind mask is real Tori Amos

Show plodded until she dropped alter-ego shtick

T’CHA DUNLEVY, The Gazette

The concept album approach gave Tori Amos renewed inspiration on her latest release, American Doll Posse, but the high-concept approach to the start of last night’s show at Place des Arts proved disappointing.

Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier was a far more suitable environment for the singer’s esoteric piano-pop than the last Montreal venue she played – the Bell Centre, in 2005. The intimate setting was almost enough to make the early-show shtick work, as Amos came out dressed as Isabel – one of several personae she adopts on American Doll Posse – and dramatically smoking a cigarette.

She opened with Yo George, a short but poignant song to President George W. Bush. “Where have we gone wrong, America?,” she sang. The sentiment echoed a recent song by another piano torch-song singer, Tired of America by our own Rufus Wainwright. But the captivating tone was short-lived.

The 2,700 fans in attendance were patient as Amos then plodded through a half-dozen songs, including a few new ones, that were relatively engaging but got put to shame when she returned as herself following a quick costume change, and got down to doing what she does best.

Amos made her name with her mix of earnest torch songs, provocative sexuality and playfully unconventional pop. Last night, as soon as she lost the austere outfit, the attitude went with it and her personality came bursting through.

Her platinum-blond hairdo was now bright red, matching a sparkling jumpsuit. She was downright exuberant as she dug into the swinging new song Big Wheel. Hints of Supertramp could be heard as she hammed it up for the crowd, crossing and uncrossing her legs, flashing smiles and eliciting a spontaneous clap-along during the breakdown (“Gimme eight, gimme seven …”).

From that point on, all was as it should be. Amos toyed with some of the antics she has been known for in the past without coming off overly affected, and often appeared to be genuinely having fun.

“Playing for you is an absolute privilege,” she told the audience. “‘No matter what we do,’ I said ‘We have to go to Montreal.”

She got funky on her old hit Cornflake Girl; she straddled her piano stool, gyrating coyly on Caught a Lite Sneeze (among others); she improvised a silly song about the crazy things one gets up to when around French people; and performed a couple of striking, elaborate ballads alone at the piano (Baker Baker and Garlands).

Amos doesn’t really need costumes and alter-egos – she’s already a character. And when she let that character shine, she made out just fine.

Opener Yoav won over the hall with his earnest but often overwrought acoustic pop songs.