for the last time
you have crossed my line
One of the first tour date rumors for the second US leg had been Pittsburgh—it came from a source reliable enough that I had already started looking into touristy things to do! But when the full list of dates got announced, it had changed to Hershey instead, the site of one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world—a town actually founded to house the factory workers! The main road through town is called Chocolate Avenue (it intersects with Cocoa Avenue, of course), the top of the lamp posts look like wrapped Hershey’s Kisses, there’s a faint chocolate smell on the air… and Hersheypark, a family theme park which had also originally been built as a leisure park for Hershey employees. It is now the largest amusement park in the state of Pennsylvania and in the top 10 most visited theme parks in North America; with no National Parks or other points of interest located on the short route between Vienna and Hershey, roller-coasters were my plan for the day, it was really fun and the rides exceeded my expectations!
After a quick shower and leisurely walk to—you guessed it—Hershey Theatre, I was desperate to escape the clammy, oppressive heat, so I went in early enough to catch the support act Tow’rs—a far cry from lovely Skaar in Europe, they were among the blandest live acts I’ve ever had to sit through. The silver lining was that I got to scout the auditorium for open seats, so as soon as they were done, I seat-hopped to a closer seat next to friends. Tori was a beautiful, sparkling vision in purple, and a lush A Sorta Fairytale perfectly set the tone for the show to come. Hershey’s such a rather random spot on the map, she didn’t have very much to say, but she made a point to mention that they’d—naturally—been gifted a lot chocolate treats; “it makes everything better, all the time“. The collective hope for this show was that she would debut Chocolate Song here, even just a few lines of it—the woman is often very literal, so if she wasn’t going to play it in a city literally built because of chocolate, she never would.
Josephine had its North American debut for the year, and she had a little fun emphasizing a lyric, turning to the audience with a “see what I did there?“-grin and a sparkle in her eyes just after “like a dream, Vienna seemed“—the day after playing a most dreamy hometown show in Vienna, Virginia! Josephine is an underrated, charmingly haunting gem of a song that I’ve really come around to in recent years, and this was a lovely performance. This year, the third song has generally indicated the trajectory of the rest of the set, and this, followed by Amber Waves, promised a ballad-heavy show, which is normally not a vibe I ever actively wish for, but after all the adrenaline rushes of the past 36 hours, the satiny luscious set she delivered was somehow just right, I found it really grounding. The piano also seemed to be louder in the house mix than usual, which was particularly lovely in a calmer set like this; Bösey was the real star of the night.
Five songs in, Ash started drumming out a beat while Tori got her lyric sheets ready, and she said that this was a “special request, took me a while, it’s really happening“, adding something along the lines of people always thinking the surprises come at the “big, big, big shows“, but that this was a big show as well. Everyone around me, myself included, thought that Chocolate Song‘s time had come, but no—it was Cool On Your Island with the band, for the very first time! I was never been a big fan of this Y Kant Tori Read song, yet even so, this was a highlight of the evening—the arrangement was a real treat, it gave the song a whole new life before she even started singing. It was really tastefully done; they didn’t try to recreate the original 80’s sound at all, but rather built a band arrangement over and around how she’s been playing it solo for years… it would remain a perfectly performed one-off, and it earned her a standing ovation.
An extended Doughnut Song followed—the only sweet she ended up singing about tonight. All she said before the solo song was “so I think this is the first time on the tour that we’ve done this, but you know… menopausal memory, heh! Who fucking knows, but I don’t recall, so I think it’s special“, and it sure was—Apollo’s Frock. It’s a rarity (I hadn’t seen it live in eight years!), but it’s particularly noteworthy on this set because it was the very first time she paired these songs at a live show… and as we know, an early version of Apollo’s Frock was first performed as an improvised intro to Doughnut Song during her Boys For Pele radio promo circuit, almost a decade before the finished song was released! Both the 1996 improv and the finished song include the lyric “I’m losing you in my rear view“, which is very similar to A Sorta Fairytale‘s “you lost me in the rear view“—so this was also a nice book-end to the first part of the show. I wonder if she’s at all conscious of these song connections, or if it’s just us fans with an encyclopedic knowledge reading so (too?) much into her setlist choices…!
Be that as it may, Apollo’s Frock was stunning, my highlight of the evening—it was full of audible breaths, stunning piano work, and a bubbling rage that I love. Tori turned it political with a fierce outburst, slamming the fallboard while singing “for the last time, you have officially crossed my line. You could never see, SCOTUS, never see, can you ever see, poor things…”. Sometime in the past few years, I came across someone claiming that this was a song that perfectly encapsulated their trans experience, and I haven’t been able to put it out of my mind since. She blew a big kiss at the end, and the band rejoined her for the final Your Cloud of the tour—such a wonderful pairing, from “the saddest rainstorm” to “if the rain has to separate from itself, does it say ‘pick out your cloud?'”. She picked all my favorite ballads tonight, this middle run was incredible—topped off with an amazing performance of Girl. It’s a favorite, and after disliking her 2017 version, I’m very glad that she went back to a tighter arrangement that I just can’t get enough of—this was a spectacular performance. I love the extra melody she plays with her right hand in this arrangement, and this is one of the songs that actually needs the constant switching between piano and keyboard—the transitions were exceptionally smooth tonight.
She followed up with a sultry-fun Fire to Your Plain, for the last time on the tour. It was still a little hesitant, but a slight improvement over the Red Bank performance, I thought—she clearly has fun with it, and I respect her for giving such a deep cut a swirl. We were approaching the end of the main set, and she delivered a stunning twelve minute long Spring Haze—not long enough, as far as I’m concerned. The intro was beyond words, such a transporting soundscape… I could listen to them jamming like this for hours, it’s like she’s possessed, she steps into and gets lost in some other realm. The way she riffed on a repeated “I know…” tonight, letting it trail off, was so eerie, it brought The Pool to mind. It’s the song closest to my heart, so I love that it’s not just been very present on this tour (finally!), but especially that it has kept on evolving—it’s like every time she plays it, she gets a different missive from the Muses to translate. The moment the drums kick in? Transcendent. I can’t get enough of it, it takes me places.
The main set ended with Cornflake Girl, but if there ever was a show that didn’t need it, this was it—it was honestly a bit of a jarring tonal shift (although someone else may disagree and think it was a much-needed energy boost), and so was Big Wheel opening the encore… she’d just done it in Virginia, but tonight was honestly begging for a Hey Jupiter! The closer was perfect though: Tear in Your Hand… incredibly, for the last time on the tour, with fifteen more shows to go! I obviously had no way of knowing, but I feel like I cherished this performance of it as if I had. It was the most fitting ending to a show that matched my mood better than anything I could’ve come up with if she’d let me choose the setlist for her—it’s magical when that happens.
Setlist
A Sorta Fairytale
Ocean to Ocean
Josephine
Amber Waves
Cool On Your Island
Doughnut Song
Apollo’s Frock (solo)
Your Cloud
Girl
Fire To Your Plain
Spring Haze
Cornflake Girl» E n c o r e «
Big Wheel
Tear In Your Hand
watercolorstain 