Tori/Montreux

I need to do a food post, this is getting ridiculous. But my laptop is in the shop, and I need the card reader in it to get shots off of the camera, so......

In the mail yesterday I got the Tori Amos, Live at Montreux dvd. It's 2 concerts, one from 1991 before her first album came out, and one from 1992, after.  In 1991 she comes out on the stage a bit meek and quiet, though she did the straddling the piano bench thing already. First few songs the audience was pretty quiet. Bear in mind at this point this is the largest audience by far she has ever played for. She had been playing in bars by the age of 13 (heck, was in the Peabody Conservatory at 5), but no one here knew her. Historically, this is a pretty damn interesting event. But anyway, at some point she starts exchanging banter with the audience, starts telling sTories, forgets the lyrics to one of her songs. It's all there, everything we love about her, at her first big gig. I thought that was really interesting. By the end the audience was in to it, and asked for, and got, an encore. I think I'll be lending this out to Tori neophytes to see if their impression of her mimics that of the audience.

In the liner notes there is a funny story. Tori was living in London at the time of the show (Montreux is in Switzerland), and every item of clothing she owned was by Patagonia, cause her clothes from LA were not warm enough. The dress she wore in the 1991 show was the only girly/dressy thing she owned at the time. 

The 2nd show was a lot more polished, and somewhat less interesting, though she did stop the gig and chew out a talkative audience member, which she still does. So again, interesting to see that her habits were already there in the early 90s. The most striking thing about the 2nd show was how she carried and presented herself, just a totally different animal. She owned the stage in 1992. Was wearing a bit more makeup. Had crazy shoes. All this talk about everything other than the music may be confusing. The thing is, that her music is great goes without saying.... And people have heard the early shows on bootlegs, it was super interesting for me to see her early stage presence. 

That said, her zeppelin covers are great, smells like teen spirit is great, and the versions of leather, winter, and upside down are pretty sweet.  

Interesting that I've done Tori and Neko posts this week. The third redhead of the holy trinity, Patty Griffin, needs to make some news...

This pic is from 2001, she cleans up well.