News: Arizona Republic Concert Review (July 19, 2009)

Like all good newspapers, the Arizona Republic not only previewed last night’s show at the Dodge, they also reviewed it as well. Specifically, Serene Dominic did and declared it “a flawless performance” and also gave open One eskimO a thumbs-up as well.

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Tori Amos keeps old believers believing

by Serene Dominic – Jul. 19, 2009 12:43 PM
Special for The Arizona Republic

If those LED clock and temperature displays out on our streets are to be trusted, it hit 118 by mid-afternoon Saturday, prompting the following missive from the online Tori Amos fan community Undented: “Just a quick heads-up to those heading to the show tonight in Phoenix: because of the excessive heat in the aptly named Valley of the Sun, there will NOT be a meet ‘n’ greet today. Stay cool in the A/C instead…”

Strangely enough, fewer people than usual took up that offer to stay cool with Tori at the Dodge Theatre for her Sinful Attraction Tour. Past row 25, there seemed to be quite a few empty seats, but Tori’s devotees made up for it with rabid enthusiasm at their sopranic majesty’s request.

Great cheers erupted every time she got up from her Rick Wakeman double keyboard duties and started to dance. And quiet rapt attention ensued during the last dying moments of every song, which generally end in a whisper or a gasp.

Although a warm and giving performer, there seemed to be precious little audience interaction beyond the music and thankful glances from stage to seat.

Amos only spoke directly to the fans three notable times. One was to introduce “two of my favorite people onstage with me,” bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain after “Beauty of Speed.”

The second time was during the first encore of “Police Me,” where she told a female fan up front “It’s OK, they’re not gonna hurt me,” and began modifying the lyrics to report what was going on down below — “she’s just policing” — which led to a brief Don Rickles-style audience mind-read of a mother up front saying “When is this redhead going to finish so I can go home and watch ‘House’? That’s OK I want to go home and watch ‘House’ too.”

That TV Worth Watching spot might explain why there was only one more selection, after which Tori gave the audience “many blessings” and took to the backstage area.

The set favored the new album, “Abnormally Attracted to Sin,” opening with a hypnotic “Give” and closing with “Strong Black Vine.” It also included “Fast Horse,” “Flavor” and the aforementioned “Police Me.”

Virtually every Amos album was represented by at least one song in the set, save for “The Beekeeper and Strange Little Girls,” her all-covers contract breaker for Atlantic Records.

Her only cover, besides working a chorus or two of “I Feel the Earth Move” into “Take to the Sky,” was her solo rendition of “Home on the Range,” for Phoenix’s ears only. To date, she’s only ever performed it in Dublin and London in a span of 15 years and for those one or two of you grimacers who still like to think that Amos studied Kate Bush’s “A Woman’s Work” front and back for elocution tips, I’ll give you this. No American frontier woman looking like Tori on the cover of “Boys for Pele” ever pronounced it “Hoooome, hooome on the reeeeeeeeeenge.” For a short song, Amos delivered it with at least “40 percent breath,” to quote Rolling Stone’s assessment of her singing style.

Another nice surprise was “Honey” (no, not the Bobby Goldsboro song — I said nice surprise), the song she left off “Under the Pink” and lived to regret. That followed her solo Lizard Lounge section and to say you could hear a pin drop during “Gold Dust” and “Baker Baker” was no exaggeration.

In typing these notes into my iPhone, I had to do it on her piano accents or risk the wrath of rabid Tori fans sitting directly behind me despite all the empty seating options. Perhaps that was the reason for the shorter than usual set.

All in all, a flawless performance that was designed to keep old believers believing, even in a downturned economy.

Making a lot of new believers tonight was the unbilled opening act from the United Kingdom, One eskimO (their spelling not ours). Like Tori, they were breathtaking in their own unassuming way, performing tracks from their just-released UK album, which singer Kristian Leontiou promised would be out in the States in September.

Like Amos, he didn’t banter with the audience at all until the very last to tell us who they were — by which time everyone wanted to know.

A cut above most of the ambient shoegazing bands out of London, One eskimO’s songs were hook-filled and heartfelt. And while the four-piece played to tracks, they impressed with multi-instrumental prowess — bassist Jamie Sefton played the four-string and one-handed trumpet at one point.

Vocalist Leontiou has a voice that’s part Nick Drake
, part Liam Gallagher, street tough and sensitive at the same time with better lyrics than the latter gets to sing. Check out “Astronauts” where he sings “If I’m not mistaken, your body’s in England, but your head is in the stars.”

Like the headliner, pretty and mesmerizing.