Beacon Theatre

Unrepentant Geraldines Tour

Date	August 13, 2014
City	New York City, NY (2)
Venue	Beacon Theatre

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Setlist

Parasol
Space Dog
Icicle
Suede
Black-Dove (January)
Winter
Spark
Weatherman

Lizard Lounge

Smalltown Boy (Bronski Beat)
Creep (Radiohead)

A Sorta Fairyfale
Marianne (tour debut)
Take To The Sky
Scarlet’s Walk
iieee
Cornflake Girl

Encore

Precious Things
16 Shades Of Blue
In Your Room (Depeche Mode)
Pretty Good Year

Reviews

Tony says:

Incredible show!
Tori was on fire, leagues beyond the first NY show.
Take to the sky with Datura bridge, Marianne was off the hook and I have not heard Icicle played and sung so passionately since the AOL out takes back in 2001.
Treat after treat. This show ranks up there with Red Bank, NJ during the AATS tour.
Put this one in the memory bank.
ze_monsta says:

An amazing second NYC show! With songs like Winter, Spark, Cornflake Girl, A Sorta Fairytale and Precious Things, this could easily be a greatest hits setlist or something.

There was clearly a recurring motif of pain, loss and sadness throughout the night with songs like Spark, Winter, Weatherman, iieee, Marianne, Creep. Creep was amazing, she was really feeling the song when she performed it.

My personal favorite moments were Icicle and Marianne (a debut!), followed by iieee and Pretty Good Year, which I has hoping she would end with. I am very pleased to have heard Weatherman and Oysters live, as these are two of my favorite songs on UG.

Very memorable two shows in New York, it was a fantastic experience and I can’t wait for another tour.
Tom M says:

What a fantastic show this was! I’d rank it in the top 5 of the Tori shows I’ve seen. The set list was killer and her performance was so intense.

I thought the openers, Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou, were good. They didn’t knock me out, but they were worth a listen.

Song reviews:
Parasol: Weird to hear this just on piano; it sounded so different at first that I thought she was opening with something different from the rest of the tour. Started singing “I’ll be safe. I’ll be safe in the my frame” as an intro and went back to it later as a chorus. Song grew in ferocity to the stunning ending.

Space Dog: fine performance but not really special. The lights made crazy orange circles on the floor of the stage at some points. Also, the lights looked like red light sabers at some points.

Tori says hello and says that there will be some surprises tonight. Says she made lots of promises about people’s requests but isn’t going to play a lot of them. Other songs wanted to come.

Icicle: This is when the show kicked into high gear and never came back down. Tori was so intense in this one, especially in the “I could have…” part which she repeated once or twice. She also slammed the piano lid really hard at one point. The lights for this song were amazing. At the end, big white shafts of light went up to the ceiling and slowly descended down to the audience. This is not one of my favorites by Tori, but I’d still say it was among the best performances of the night.

Suede: Started with creepy synthy intro with Tori undulating her body. Played the “little sister” part on piano for a hypnotically long time. Part of the song had fragmented red lights on the backdrop.

Black Dove: Killer performance. Not much else to add.

Winter: Lovely as ever. The blue-lit backdrop started out looking like cracked ice but at the end of the song, it was flickering and it looked to me like the northern lights.

Spark: Pretty long intro on the keyboard, which sounded more harpsichordy than usual. Tori’s voice and piano on the “ballarinas” part was phenomenal.

Weatherman: Simply gorgeous.

Smalltown Boy: Before this Tori says that Lizard Lounge is her favorite part of the show. She said if we fuck up we’ll just start again and it’ll be fine. She said that with the requests some of you will be disappointed and some of you won’t. She fiddled with some knobs on the synth and a groovy bass and drum track started. I’d never heard this song but it was really cool.

Creep: played just on the piano. So intense and chilling. Tori’s voice here was unearthly.

A Sorta Fairytale: This was a slow, sleepy, gentle version of this song with lots of orange and red lighting. She switches from piano to synth for the “Oliver Stone” bridge.

Marianne: Such a sweet performance of this gem. Pretty long piano intro. I loved how the lights started out pale icy blue and turned red and orange by the end of the song.

Take to the Sky: Incredibly energetic. When the song melds into the Datura bridge the crowd goes nuts and the song slows a little bit without losing any energy. I was surprised how well they fit together. Synth gets switched out for organ during this song.

Scarlet’s Walk: Intense red lighting on the backdrop. Long creepy intro played on organ. The song is slowed down and eerie, while Tori’s wails were out of this world. I did miss the awesome drums, but this is a song I’ve been dying to hear live since 2003. So happy she came out tonight.

iieee: Started on the organ and I didn’t know what it was until Tori started the lyrics. Switches to the piano and wails during the “arsonist” part. At that point the lights are pale yellow and swirling around the stage.

Cornflake Girl: I totally understand what folks have been saying about the backing track. It did detract from this and make it seem like I was just listening to the CD really loud.

Precious Things: Started out quieter than usual but built in intensity. The “girrrl” part was a deep demonic moan that just went on and on. Lights were strobing and blinding and probably not good for anyone with sensory issues.

16 Shades of Blue: Same issues with Cornflake Girl, only worse. Really sounded exactly like the CD. Lights were pretty and blue, of course.

In Your Room: Never heard this, but it feels like a Tori song. Starts on piano and then moves to synth. Killer performance.

Pretty Good Year: Beautiful performance with super intense “what’s it gonna take” part.

Tori thanked us, waved, blew kisses, gestured hugging us all, and bounced up and down. Then she left the stage and the magical night came to an end.
Dollface Jones says:

What an incredible show. I can’t even believe that creep cover happened. That and marianne justified spending money I really didn’t have on this show. And there were so many other highlights! No ADP, aats, or beekeeper! Did I mention the creep cover? I’m a huge rh fan but I never enjoyed them playing it nearly as much.
Amber says:

It sounds like this was the better night for the crowd. Not a lot of obnoxious shouting, but plenty of participation for Take to the Sky and Cornflake Girl. Creep was incredible. You could tell Tori was having a lot of fun with the lyrics (“you’re so fucking special”) and so were we – she received a mid-show standing ovation. Before Lizard Lounge she said she that was about to “break a lot of promises” and reminded us that “we all know the rules, if we fuck up, we start again.” During Pretty Good Year she changed one of the last verses to “pretty shit year,” which earned some end of the night laughs. Oh how I wish there was s third New York show!
gingeraffe says:

Another great show, though I preferred the first night to this one, unlike most of my friends. I had worse seats though, and experienced much more of the obnoxious crowd in the audience, so that could be coloring my experience. Though she did have a few moments of high energy, it seemed tonight that Tori was a bit more mellow, as opposed to the first night when she seemed to be positively beaming. Space Dog was fun, Icicle was gorgeous, Spark on the harpsi was incredible! Creep was deeply moving and got a standing ovation. It was great to hear Marianne too; I don’t think anyone was expecting that. Scarlet’s Walk was a bit anticlimactic, and iieee lacked something that it had the night before. Of course Cornflake Girl was fun, but you’re practically listening to the album version and she plays and sings over it. But she quickly made up with this sagging section of the set with an outstanding encore! I truly wish her fans wouldn’t get so drunk and yell in the middle of songs. And call her “Myra Ellen” at every show. That is disrespectful to everyone, including Tori. Still, a pretty good show.
Mandy says:

Tori just schooled every other performer on the planet. The end.
James Addotta says:

Tori’s performance this evening was electric. Vocally and musically, she’s in her prime. The audience energy was powerful as well. I would have liked to see more from Geraldines. Nonetheless, the setlist was very enjoyable. Marianne made its tour debut, and the covers were quite unexpected, and as always uniquely and wonderfulluy performed. Most of her songs this evening were what I like to think of as her big guns. Some of her most famous and beloved pieces made for a powerful and goosebump-inspired night. Thank you Tori for a very memorable evening, and happy early B-Day. Can’t wait for the next album and tour.
Meg says:

This was the best Tori show I’ve seen since the Scarlet’s Walk tour. I love Tori’s shows, but I hadn’t been to a good one in years until tonight. The ADP tour was okay but a bit rigid and predictable, enough that I skipped the AATS tour altogether (I miss the LE through Scarlet’s Walk years). The Beekeeper shows were tragically boring as hell—her voice was weak and the whole thing was unpracticed, and I later read somewhere that SHE finds touring alone boring. All of which is to say I was nervous about her touring solo this time around… but it was brilliant.

The performance of Space Dog was dynamic and alive—I’ve seen it performed before but this was the first time I got interested in it. It made me want to go back to the record and listen again. The performance of Icicle was spectacular… again, seen it before, but this is the first time it approached the kind of authentic emotional performance that used to come from her consistently. The “feel the word” line was delivered and repeated with conviction. It’s this kind of thing that blurs the line between pop songs and performance art, to me. It reminded me a little of the excellent version of Crucify she did on the SW tour with the “I feel the earth move” bridge. Black Dove was similarly visceral and strong as on the record. Her ability to change up the instrument she’s playing during a song will always impress me. I particularly love it when it really adds to the song.

A Sorta Fairytale, normally one of my favorite songs, suffered without the texture of the drums behind it. There was no attitude, sort of a throw away.

We got a lot of the classics: Cornflake Girl, Precious Things, Pretty Good Year. I agree with what’s been said already—Cornflake Girl, amazing as it is to witness live, does lose something with the backing track. It’s a great enough song that it wasn’t completely ruined, but it comes off as weaker and honestly a bit timid to use a recording from the record as a backing track. Live performances don’t need to sound perfect… they just need to make the music come alive. Likewise, 16 Shades of Blue suffered from the awful backing track. It’s a cool song at its core but already terribly overproduced on the album, so I was hoping to get to hear it with just Tori and the piano this time. Nope, we still got the over-literal and goofy (not in a good way) ticking of the clock sound effect, etc. Which is my general criticism with all of the newest records… the production no longer adds texture and interest (like on Choirgirl and TVAB)… it’s just there to disguise the deepening of her voice. It sounds like the sonic equivalent of gummy bears or as she’s described it, “a fairy on crack.” But the deepening of her voice isn’t a bad thing! I’d love to see her embracing it, like Joni Mitchell did, instead of straining to fight it. Weatherman was cooler and more compelling than I’d expected, because it was allowed to be stripped down of the weird background sounds on the record. I was happy to hear it live on just the piano.

During the best moments of tonights’ show, that’s exactly what she did. Instead of trying to sing old songs in the high register and slowing them down with that odd tight strained pronunciation of vowels, she deepened them and used a growl. Precious Things, for example, was stunning. The result is that her voice has not sounded this amazing live in ten years. iiieee and Scarlet’s Walk both got this treatment. Scarlet’s Walk, by the way, has gotten so much more interesting with maturity. Even that record suffered from too much production, so to hear it live divorced of the crap on the record was eerily beautiful and haunting as it should be.

Take to the Sky was more energetic than I’ve ever seen it, and the way she sings the Datura bridge now makes me understand the song in a completely new light. Her ability to do that is why I’ve seen her live shows probably about ten times now (something I don’t do with any other artist). The Bronski Beat song was beautiful and a unique interpretation. Creep was sung with relentless power and joy—you can always tell when she’s in the moment, it’s when she sings the vowels without affectation, i.e. “bliss” instead of “bleeees”, and refrains from inexplicably and frustratingly slowing the tempo of the song. She got into the persona of the song, like the amazing performer she can be. It was also fun to hear her having fun with a song, instead of singing about grids of disempowerment for once. You can’t be a compelling songwriter when you have all the answers right there in the song. None of us is perfect. Her music is compelling (at its best) because there’s true anger and passion and some pretty sincere emotions that could be seen as gross or embarrassing but which we we can all relate to. You can’t be a musician who relies on the confessional mode, but doesn’t actually confess to anything. So it was cool to see her performing a song about bitterness and anger. I get that maybe that’s not where she is in her life generally, as she may have been during Boys for Pele and Choirgirl, for instance—neither am I; but we all have those sorts of feelings still within us.

I’m pretty sick of hearing Winter live. I love the song, it’s beautiful, but she’s clearly played it so many times, the only way she can think to vary it up is to sing. the. words. super. slowly. There’s not a huge difference of interpretation from the record thirty years ago. It’s been played at nearly every show I’ve been to. Not sure why it’s still a fan favorite; it’s one of the least interesting songs live. I like the big bold numbers like Little Earthquakes (the song), something that has enough space for variation and creativity.

The reason I still see Tori even though I haven’t loved any of her records since Scarlet’s Walk and starting with the painful painful Beekeeper is that she has a prodigious ability to tell new stories with old songs. Pancake with the Ohio bridge is practically a different song from the version on the record. When I want to hear it, it’s a totally different experience I’m seeking out than when I listen to Scarlet’s Walk. Another example is the live version of Sugar versus the recorded b-side version, or of course, Waitress. She’s a stunningly talented, creative person. I wish her more recent records showed the confidence in her voice and gifts that she used to have. But this tour seems to be a strong step in that direction. (NOW JUST DROP THE LAYERS OF SACCHARINE PRODUCTION!)

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