News: Orange County Register Concert Review (December 16, 2007)

The Orange County Register’s Ben Wener reviewed last night’s show at The Grove for the Sunday edition of the paper. While not the most favorable of reviews, it is an interesting perspective from someone who, unlike many of us, has not been following the Posse on their merry jaunt around the world. From the outside looking in, a Tori Amos concert, particularly one from the current tour, can be a fairly mystifying experience!

And for those who don’t like words, check out the slideshow of Pip-tures that accompanies the article (from which the image at right was gleaned).

Thanks to Kimberly for finding this before we did!

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Tori Amos wigs out during O.C. appearance

Review: Her Grove show had the makings of a conceptual epic, but the grand eccentric’s persona-twisting proved merely superficial.

By BEN WENER
The Orange County Register

Sometimes two heads really are better than one. But what of two alter-egos, with two more waiting in the mental wings? Would the presence of so many personae help or hinder Tori Amos, that irretrievably idiosyncratic singer-songwriter, who Saturday night brought some (but not all) of her imaginary “American Doll Posse” to her sold-out gig at the Grove of Anaheim?

The answer isn’t easy to deduce.

On one hand, the potentially ruinous conceit of performing in bewigged characters greatly suited Amos, providing her show more structure than she’s shown in the past while forcing her to rein in wandering flights of fancy – lest loose phrasing and lengthy costume changes turn a 19-song set into an arduous three-hour experience.

On the other hand, the randomness of it all – alter-egos surfacing and disappearing after four songs, without any explanation of their purpose other than what’s buried in the songs – often led to a frustrating vagueness. What was this all supposed to signify? Was there any grander concept on display other than spying heretofore unseen sides of Amos’ personality?

That deeper peer inside seemed to be the overriding concern when this five-woman “Posse” arrived on record in May. Tori, still the primary persona, unveiled four creations: Isabel, the vociferously political photographer based on Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt; the wounded Clyde, based on Persephone, goddess of the underworld; the streetwise Pip, based on Athena; and the sensual Santa (nothing to do with Mr. or Mrs. Claus), based on Aphrodite.

Each was given portions of the 23-track “Posse” to embody, and though it’s impossible to know who’s singing when without a cheat sheet – they all sound like Tori, of course – the confusing results were nonetheless striking, the author having pieced together her most piercing set of songs in years.

On stage, however, this abstraction crumbled into a schizoid mess, which is regrettable. Amos had the makings of a stirring piece of Freudian pop theater here – let’s call it “Quintophenia,” with apologies to the Who – and indeed her performance began as if she were intent on unifying the various figures of “Posse” into a cohesive whole. Not a rock opera, that’s too pompous and bloated, but at least some sort of conceptual arc that would let us into Amos’ fertile psyche in ways even rabid fans might never have imagined were possible.

First up in her playlet: Pip, suggestively bending over the piano bench after entering, hiking up her black skirt to reveal more of her leather leggings before pointing out that she can be “Cruel” without knowing why, and that “Teenage Hustling” made her what she is today – a sinister seductress who sings Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” over the three-chord pound of Iggy and the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”

Next to appear: Santa, curiously spritzing the crowd with juice, sashaying in her red party dress, her platinum bob bouncing about during “Body and Soul” (the album’s fulcrum) and her most passionate traits emerging during “Raspberry Swirl” and “She’s Your Cocaine,” two of several older Amos songs that were smartly reworked. (As the dark-haired Pip, Amos delivered the most potent rendition of “The Waitress” I’ve heard since it appeared on 1994’s “Under the Pink.”)

Finally – though it shouldn’t have been the final act – Tori herself surfaced in silver lamé and a long red wig, the superficiality of that look giving off the intended effect: This wasn’t really Amos, either, just another outgrowth of her Sybil-like personality. Announcing her arrival with the audience-assisted chants of “Big Wheel,” Tori further retooled her past, freshening up “Cornflake Girl” and “Liquid Diamonds,” dusting off the rarity “Take Me With You,” adding heightened delicacy (and also thunder) to “Pretty Good Year” while rewriting some key lines.

All of which would have amounted to a solid start for a performance-art epic – insert intermission here. Instead, that was the end of Amos’ set, to be followed by straightforward readings of “Precious Things” and “Tear in Your Hand,” both from her 1992 debut “Little Earthquakes” (and both still performed as Tori), then a second encore by (I think) Pip, increasingly sullen as the evil sister of “Suede.”

There were aspects to both finishes – “maybe it’s time now to wave goodbye” from “Tear,” “you’ll forgive me one day” from “Suede” – that seemed to suggest the rainbow’s-end conclusion of a narrative arc, the calm after a major catharsis. Only, what was the story here? What did the characters represent, or tell us about their creator? And what did it mean that two of them were absent?

Ultimately, this felt like little more than a means for Amos, 44, to play dress-up for a packed house of rabid Toriphiles, who I suspect would be hard-pressed to explain away the eccentricities of this performance as well.

I’m grateful that the concept has (for the moment, anyway) done away with Amos’ most grating affectations – the way she can draw out the ends of phrases, for instance, to such a halting point that one loses all sense of tempo and timing. Even during her “T & Bö” portion (the latter is short for her Bösendorfer piano), she kept melodies sharply compact, and the work of her three-man backing band, illuminating the material while staying economical, seemed to firm up Amos’ grasp on songs that often have grown tediously expansive.

All the same, I can’t help but think there was a more potent way to have put this show together – something that could have elucidated the most politically-motivated music of Amos’ career while clearly delineating the roles in her psychodrama. Maybe it would have helped to have included more than five “Posse” songs, for clarity. Then again, that might have made this muddle worse.