From: sara@castle.ed.ac.uk (Sara's ElectroPostie)
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Subject: Tori Amos
Summary: Bi content - er ...
Keywords: beautiful talented pianist singer redhead
Date: 10 Apr 92 20:30:49 GMT
Organization: News Addicts

Tori Amos, Edinburgh Queen's Hall, Wednesday April 8th.

This was the second time I have been to hear Tori Amos play and sing;
the first time was at Edinburgh's Music Box earlier this year, a
somewhat more rough-and-ready venue.  Personally I prefer such
places, I find the atmosphere more informal and relaxed (and the
ability to get a beer at any time during the performance is a big
plus!), but the Queen's had the advantage of providing Tori with a
very fine grand piano, a definite improvement on the electric piano
she had at the Music Box; the electric piano actually sounded rather
better than I thought it would, but had some bug that seemed to
necessitate Tori's having to crawl around under it after almost every
song to jiggle with loose wires or somesuch.

To my annoyance I arrived at the Queen's Hall gig late, sweating
profusely through my having cycled the two or three miles from my
house in something like ten minutes flat.  This was due to my having
forgotten to take my ticket in to work with me, rather silly as I had
to work quite late that evening and my place of work is only a few
hundred yards from the Queen's.

Anyway, I got inside, expecting to catch just the last two numbers,
but luckily found that I had only missed a couple of the first songs. 
A big treat was in store.  The piano sounded wonderful at the touch
of Tori's very capable hands, as did Tori herself.  She has a
powerful voice, full and high and somewhat  breathy.  There is a lot
of humour as well as a lot of sadness in her music.  This comes
across in the delivery, both vocally and instrumentally, as well as
in the lyrics.  She writes real good toons (most of her material is
original to her) which are highly melodic and harmonic, but there is
a weird edge, a slight dischord, which is a little reminiscent of -
OK, I have to make this comparison now - Kate Bush.  Having said
that, she is individual and very talented in her own right, I make
the comparison as a high accolade, not as "just another woman who
sings and plays piano".

She sang most of the recorded material that I have heard - I think
all that I *haven't* heard are the other tracks on the CD single of
_China_, which are Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones and Nirvana covers;
although I recently acquired it I have no CD player on which to play
it! however she played all those at the gig - plus a little more
besides.  She sang a wonderful song which sounds very familiar to me,
with the lines "Canada, Oh Canada" in it, but it is not on any of the
records or CDs that I have and I wonder if this is also a cover. 
Also to my shame, I don't know where she comes from; North America
certainly, but is she Canadian herself?  She sang all or most of the
tracks from her first and current album _Little Earthquakes_; I
strongly recommend this album, although I prefer her live
performances as I believe the songs come across better with just her
and the piano, without the added string arrangements and so forth.

Tori Amos is beautiful and sensuous, with creamy white skin and long
flaming hair which pours down in waves over her shoulders and back;
she moves sinuously as she sings and plays, every now and then
shaking her encroaching red locks back from her lovely face with a
flamboyant and almost wanton toss of the head.  She talks to her
audience in a light-hearted fashion, but doesn't shy away from
serious matters; she dedicated _Me and a Gun_ (a song about rape) to
a certain 14 year old Irish girl.  She made it plain that _Me and a
Gun_ tells of her personal experience.

The power of her voice and its rhythmic and harmonic interplay with
the piano makes for a very moving and somehow personal experience; I
feel she is singing her songs directly to me, or that in some way
they could have come from me if only I had the expressive power to
have produced them.  Even when the meaning of the lyrics is not
entirely clear to me, there seems to be an imagery that I relate to,
that talks to my soul.  At both the Tori Amos gigs I attended I found
it impossible to maintain dry eyes, or to keep from moving in
sympathy with the music.  Her voice continued to sing to me in my
head long after I had reluctantly made my way outside.

{I would like to thank Tanaqui for introducing me to the work of this
wonderful musician.}

Sara 
April 10th, 1992

-- 
 >{8-)  Sara Hopkins  (-8}<                      ______             ^
 Geography Dept.  Edinburgh Uni.  Drummond St.   \  / / Glorious OOO
 Edinburgh,  EH8  9XP,  UK. +44 (0/31) 650 2662   \/\/   Stereo  ++  
 >  sara@geovax.ed.ac.uk  < < Six of one, half a dozen of the other >
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 13:49:59 EDT
From: ebt-inc!pks@uunet.UU.NET (Pearl Stark)
Subject: Re: Women are BLG, too! (was: Outing at the Oscars?)