We’ll see how brave you are
We’ll see how fast you’ll be running
This would be my first show in the US, and I was in equal parts excited and terrified. You hear so much horrible stuff about American audiences, I was a little worried about sitting next to drunk/loud/generally disruptive people, but I was so excited for the show that I tried to put that out of my mind. We knew there wouldn’t be a m&g, but in the course of the afternoon we got word that there would be none at the other three shows I was doing either, which, I’m not going to lie, broke my fucking heart. I’d worked on a scrapbook filled with tour memories and letters from European friends that I was meant to deliver to her, and I would’ve rather have done that in person, but I told myself I’d find a way to see her, somehow.
We got to the venue pretty late for my standards. The friends I was with went to get dinner—I’d eaten before meeting them at the airport, so I stuck around and got to meet some lovely people I hadn’t seen in years/had never met in real life, which was amazing. And then… I saw a familiar tattoo, and thought “holy shit, this person stole my friend’s design”… but it was my friend from the UK, who hadn’t told me she’d be at this show to surprise me! In addition to that, my seat was upgraded to the front row, which I really had not been expecting for any US shows, especially since Tori didn’t even know I was coming as I’d wanted to be a European surprise, so I was over the moon!
The venue was odd, even for American standards, apparently. I don’t know, it was so weird, but I kinda loved that this was my first American Tori experience, because it was just so ‘Murican, you know? It was inside the MGM at National Harbor (not DC proper, but in Maryland, and you could see across the river to Virginia), so it was really a hotel and a mall and a casino and a concert hall all in one? It was a mini-Vegas, except nowhere near as grimy and sleazy as the Vegas I’ve experienced, since it only opened the previous year. The auditorium itself didn’t look like it was designed for live shows, it was more of a convention kind of hall, yet the sound was amazing!
I was just so fucking happy to be back that I was feeling restless in my seat, kind of low-key dancing and bopping my head to the beat as soon as iieee started. It was a really on-point performance, and I cherished every single second of it. Bliss as the second song promises just the kind of show that I’d been hoping for: A fierce, fun one, hopefully with some political shout-outs. I love this song, always, and this was a really good one—I loved the echo effect on her voice, and the fallboard slam was hot. She talked about this being her hometown show, and that she got fired here a lot, and how it is a good thing that she’s not here now or she would be getting fired a lot more. She also added that she had lots of requests, and that she can’t do them all, but she has a surprise at the very end, so we shouldn’t give up. Little Amsterdam was never a top favorite song of mine, but one I can really appreciate when in the right mood. I’d been missing it live, and holy shit did she deliver: This was one of my highlights of the night, she went for it hard. It was a perfect blend of her low register voice, which I love, and some spot-on high notes, it was really incredible.
People lost their minds at the very first line of the next song, while my European ass had no idea what was happening. I figured it out eventually though (it was America the Beautiful), and I loved the little improv in it: “America / we won’t let you fall / we won’t let them swallow you whole”. Amber Waves was one of my very first favorite songs on Scarlet’s Walk back in the day, while these days I’d much rather hear pretty much any other song on that record live—but this was truly gorgeous, and the second song in a row that had only come up on the US leg this tour. Still, I would’ve put my money on Pancake or Virginia for tonight. She held the last note on “waving” for a pretty long time, it was really an all-around lovely performance! 1000 Oceans was an odd choice to follow up that strings of songs with, and the energy in the room totally shifted. She had a really hard time singing this one, her voice broke really early on. I wonder if she was thinking of Mary or Michael or someone else while singing it. She was clearly very emotional, but I’ve had enough of this song, and I didn’t want sad songs after having buried my grandma just two weeks prior, so I let my mind wander during this so I wouldn’t get bummed out. It’s the only time she’s played it on the US leg, and of course I was there, which means I’ve seen every single performance of this song on this world tour.
We were back on track with another shift in tone thanks to Russia. I love that she was ballsy enough to play this one here—I thought she might think it too on the nose, but it really needed to come. There was a very short and lovely piano intro before the number stations recording came on, and I loved this very much! Yes, Anastasia followed, another song that only came out on the other side of the pond—a lovely transition from Russia. I was excited to hear this as it’s my favorite Under The Pink song, but she blew me the fuck away—it was possibly the best I’ve ever heard, and my definitive highlight of the night. She sang lots of it in her low register, which is incredible, and then went on a really angry and super fierce rant at the very end, punctuated by some amazing key-pounding: “We’ll see how brave you are, boys / we’ll see how fast you’ll be running from the great Mother / we’ll see how brave you are, EPA / we’ll see how fast you’ll be running / from our great Mother / she knows just who you are”. The high notes right after that weren’t her best, but she was moving between registers a lot, so I can forgive her—her chest voice was on-fucking-point, and she knew it, you could tell. She was wearing red, and she put her wrist-dangles in her hand for the her blood’s on my hands line, and it looked really badass. We gave her a standing ovation after this, and she thanked us and said “hometown girl’s gotta bring it”.
She wanted to make Imagine a sing-along, but that didn’t happen. I don’t particularly care for this song, mostly because I have my issues with John Lennon as a person and find it incredibly hypocritical as a result, but I did like the synchronicity of having just heard a cover of this very song at the A Perfect Circle show in NYC the night before and it cropping up again at Tori’s show the very next day. The second cover was Joni Mitchell’s A Case of You, and I’ve heard this cover a lot on this tour (well… four times of the five she’s done it, but for a cover, that feels like a lot), so I wasn’t very thrilled by this Fake Muse Section. I do like the song a lot though, and her piano playing was really lovely. I think she either forgot the lyrics or started in the wrong key on a line or something, because she repeated a line like three times before carrying on, which was different, and her voice sounded a little raspy on the last high note. I’d missed hearing Reindeer King—it was a great comfort to me while losing my grandma and I suppose it will always be connected to this time in my life, and I may have shed a tear or two hearing it live for the first time since she passed away.
Girl had its tour debut! She said something along the lines of being aware that she can’t get out of playing Bang on this tour eventually, but that it’s proving to be a challenging one. I was very happy to hear it—it was my first ever favorite Tori song and is very special to me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sold on this new arrangement—it was perfectly fine for the most part, but then during the “and I ride to work” section she repeated each line three times, and it totally ripped me out of the song’s beautiful flow. It was unnecessary, and dragged the song out to 6+ minutes! The keyboard arrangement was gorgeous though and really complimented the piano parts—and the bridge was super fierce and amazing, as always. Hard to believe, but this was my first time hearing Marianne solo—I’d heard it twice before, at the orchestral shows though. It was beautiful, and I guess I should’ve realized it would come up at her hometown show, but it never crossed my mind, so I was really pleasantly surprised, and I really liked the transition from Girl. Black-Dove was next, another song that’s only come out in the US, and another song with a girl connection. This was only my second time ever hearing this, and I always said that it’s the one song I’d like to listen to while I’m dying—I can just imagine slipping away to this. Morbid, perhaps, but it’s the kind of stuff I think about. It was stunning, and the lights during it were really pretty, too. The piano bridge is one of my favorite Tori moments ever, it just fills my heart.
It’s funny how the songs work on different tours and legs—Blood Roses was a staple through-out the European leg, but pretty much disappeared on the US leg, so this was a very rare appearance. I love this song, no complaints, she could play it every single night as far as I’m concerned. It was preceded by an improv on the keyboard, using the organ sample: “I go on the street / back on the street little darling / back on the street again / with my lightning / with my songs / my song in my heart”. It was an amazing performance, and can I just point out what an amazing run of songs this second part was? What a setlist. Despite everything, I was utterly unprepared for how intense the American crowd is. I was poised and ready for the stage-rush, and still a butt-load of people ran in from my left and made it to the stage before me as she started on Precious Things—I was still at the front, but I wasn’t as central as I could’ve been. Security was really a pain in the ass, going through the crowd and yelling at people to get back to their seats and shining lights in people’s faces, even after she came back out, it looked like they were not briefed that this was going to happen. I was going to take a picture when she turned around to the keys because I assumed A Sorta Fairytale would be next, and that’s when the blurry picture below happened—that’s how shocked I was when she debuted Raspberry Swirl instead. It was so much fun, and she looked so smug and happy! It had the backing track and really felt like we were in a club, an amazing ending to my first (and in retrospect, favorite) American show.
My worries about American crowds didn’t prove to be true, at least not yet—it might’ve been the super strict security that made people behave, or the casino crowd, or just the fact that by being in the front I didn’t notice anything that was going on behind me, but I had a fantastic experience. I don’t know if it was specific to this tour, but I felt like I was watching someone else on stage, it was really odd. Tori carries herself differently in the States, and I think it was more extreme than usual this time around because she was just so sad in Europe, being across the world from her mom, and now that she’s at least in the same country, she has more peace of mind? I don’t know if that’s the whole reason, but it’s how I’m rationalizing it. I can’t believe how many tour song debuts I had tonight—pretty amazing, but it kinda makes me wish she’d spread the variety out more: There’s songs that were staples in Europe that have virtually disappeared in the US, but the opposite is even more true.
Setlist
i i e e e
Bliss
Little Amsterdam
America the Beautiful (traditional)
Amber Waves
1000 Oceans
Russia
Yes, Anastasia
Imagine (John Lennon)
A Case of You (Joni Mitchell)
Reindeer King
Girl
Marianne
Black-Dove (January)
Improv / Blood Roses
Precious Things
Raspberry Swirl
watercolorstain 