April
8, 2005 -- Tori Amos at Hammerstein
in NY was great. As any Amos fan will tell you, she’s a hell of a
performer. This tour was sans percussion, and it wasn't missed at all.
Back and forth from piano to organ, then both at the same time while
singing hitting high notes then off to a different organ with lights
and moods and a good setlist.
And the crowd was electric -- like it's
a World Series game. This was the second time I’d seen her, but this
time the tickets were much better – tenth row at Hammerstein vs
balcony at Radio City. $55 a piece. I dialed in the second they went
on sale.
'Look
Right Through You'
One
odd thing at the end is that so many people are clued in to the fact
that as her last song of the regular set comes to an end, hundreds
of people come out of nowhere from the back of the theatre as if on
cue and fill the space in front of the stage and the main aisles,
blocking the view of many of the folks seated up front. This forced
everyone to stand up, but our view wasn’t blocked too badly so we
didn’t mind. And it stayed that way for the two encores (four
songs total), after which the lights went on and everyone stopped in
mid-clap and headed for the exits. Kind of annoying from a
you-used-to-be-up-front-but-now-your-not-because-other-people-have-decided-
they-deserve-to-be-up-front perspective. I understand and applaud
the fuck-the-next-guy mentality; it’s just odd that people do it
while listening to the passionate, loving lyrics of Amos. Although
she does use the word 'fuck' alot so maybe that's why they do it.
A
quick browse of the Amos forum after the show revealed that a whole
lot of those folks sitting up front were pissed off beyond belief.
All kinds of name calling going on up there. Not just in NY but in
Hartford and other places. In Hartford people were getting pushed to
the floor.
Some of the reasons these folks give for rushing the stage is off
the wall too -- I've read a couple of folks on the Amos forum
explain that you get an outside chance to have Amos 'look into your
eyes' !! This causes some sort of transcendental experience, as she
apparently has the ability to 'look right through you'.
I've seen on tv that Amos is a bit cross-eyed so maybe they're
mistaking that for looking through or past them. It's all one
horrible mistake.
Drama
Queen?
So it was a great show but I have to say there’s a bit of
Amos that I’ve never paid any mind to, but if you do, it
can throw you off a bit – she’s a something of a …
drama queen. Not on stage at all, but like in the
scorecard/magazine they were selling at the show... she’s
drapped all over the furniture in various melodramatic
poses. I was looking over the shoulder of the guy next to me
who bought the book, and it was.. you know, a little
gag-me-with-a-spoon over the top.
All
You Need is Love
Other highlights: Upon leaving the theatre, one woman came running
up to this other woman and hit her on the head and ran away. The
woman who got hit turns around, looks at me – I do my best
stand-back-and-look-over-at-the-culprit-"wasn’t me"
maneuver; she immediately picks up on who hit her and runs after
her, trying to cut her off at the exit door, yelling "you think
that’s funny?!" "Did you see that, she hit me!!"
She was Pissed. Wasn’t sure if they were friends and a joke had
gone awry or they were strangers about to have a go at each other.
But my wife had to go to the bathroom so we had to go off in the
other direction and I missed the rest of the catfight.
Then we decided to get my daughter a t-shirt. As we’re standing on
line – there were like 20 parallel lines of people each 10 people
deep; about 200 people ensconsed around the tshirt stand which had 2
people operating it. I made an out-loud comment that it looked like
noone was buying the Matt Nathanson (intro act) shirt and this one
guy on line (there was one guy and 199 girls) turns toward me and
says in rather stand-offish manner "I bought TWO Matt Nathanson
t-shirts". So I told him I was sorry I didn’t mean to offend
Matt Nathanson.
Then some other girl behind me is chatting with her friends and at
the same time instructing another friend to cut through the mass of
people and buy a shirt "Push yourself up there" she kept
instructing her, "Push yourself through those people" as
if all the people in front of this girl were just standing there
because they had nothing better to do and couldn’t hear every word
she was saying.
So all in all a fun time had by all; great music, fights, nasty
uncaring people, and really good t-shirts by the way.
