But I haven’t seen Barbados
So I must get out of this
I’d never seen Tori play the same city three times in a row—only two. In my experience, when there’s a double show in the same place, the second one tends to be the more memorable, as it tends to have the more fan-oriented, deep-cut setlist, having gotten the classics out of the way on night one, which is when press is in the audience. I had a suspicion that despite one final show to go on the 2022 tour, this second one would be the stand-out of the L.A. shows… and I wasn’t wrong.
My seat was one row in front of the one the previous night—and this time there was the added perk of having some people I knew scattered around me. So many shows in, I’m running out of things to say about both Juárez and Bouncing off Reindeers, but with the benefit of hindsight, this is the one show where Juárez felt the most fitting—ominous and sinister, a portent of things to come. The shows on this tour had been providing escapism, something that had taken some getting used to on my part—I go to Tori shows to feel more deeply and connect with my feelings, yet, with some notable exceptions (such as Indian Summer in Dublin, or Scarlet’s Walk in Cincinnati), the setlists are clearly designed to try and make the audiences forget about the collective trauma of the past years for give or take two hours. This still wasn’t anywhere close to being one of those few, rare blood-letting shows, but compared to the mood on the rest of the tour so far, it would turn out to be a darker ride than usual, scratching an itch I’d felt since opening night.
She was beaming when she greeted the audience, saying that playing L.A. is an “absolute dream“, because she used to live down the road in a tiny little place in the 80’s, “and I never thought I’d be playing—I mean, I dreamed I would, but there were days… back to the piano bar missy! But hey-ho, those days, that’s what got me here“. Crucify seemed the most apropos song choice after that anecdote, it was a jamming yet heartfelt rendition, and she seemed to reach the high notes effortlessly, without holding back. I’m always struck by how easy it would be for her to phone the classics in, but she never does—thirty years later, she still means every word she sings, and the crowd responded in kind, revving up right along with her on the “never going back” bridge, it was life-affirming. The echo-effect on “chains” was well-placed, and she also did cute I hadn’t heard yet: She very emphatically included nonbinary pronouns after singing to the girls and boys in turn—”these chains, they, not again, these chains they put themselves in…“; a bit silly, perhaps, but I appreciated the sentiment and inclusion, and thought it was cute. I hadn’t seen Crucify since the Dublin show, and this performance blew each and all of the three UK/Ireland ones out of the water.
Speaking of songs I hadn’t heard since Europe, that applied to the next offering as well—Honey. It was stunning, and I wonder why she went through the trouble of working it up with the band early on (the tour debut, and only other time I got to see it, was at the second London show), to then go on and only play it a handful of times. It featured a prolonged, moody intro, and was just gorgeous, with some stunning lower register vocals on the “don’t bother coming down” line that reverberated in my bones. I can’t remember if it had already been part of the arrangement in London or not, but Ash used a shaker on the line referencing cowboys, and it brought a rattlesnake to my mind, which I thought that was a cute little touch. They immediately segued into A Sorta Fairytale, which surprised me—it’s one of the songs she really likes to play on a final night as a sort of farewell to the audience, and if I would have had to place bets, I would’ve bet on it for the closing show. She deeply felt the “I had to steal it” line, and I know she’s been doing it for a long while, but I’m not sure if I ever singled out my favorite moment in this song, which is the way she changes the original “this” to a possessive on “we’re just imposters in their country, you know…“—she really emphasizes it, and it hits different hearing it after I’d spent some time in the week leading up to these shows on sacred tribal land.
The improvised instrumental intro to Ocean to Ocean is something I have grown to look forward to every night, it never disappoints—it’s such a wonderful way to put their musicianship and their rapport on display. For the final song of the first half, Ash counted them in by beating his drumsticks together, so it was clear that Past the Mission would be played next. It’s one of the few songs where I just adore the part she plays on keyboards—usually I’m a Bösey-girl through and through. I preferred this one to the one I’d previously seen in Oakland because the higher parts didn’t sound the least bit strained, and as much as I love the extended, improvised performances, it felt nice to get a tight and snappy song on a set that had so far entirely consisted of 7+ minute versions. And then it was time for the solo section: The stage was bathed in red light, she bent down, picked up a microphone that had been hidden under the piano, turned towards the audience, microphone in one hand, sheet of lyrics in the other, and didn’t say a single word.
I experienced this in slow-motion. As soon as I saw she had a microphone in her hand I turned to my friend behind me, who was already looking at me with wide eyes. There are only three acapella songs she could possibly be about to sing. Wampum Prayer and Song For Eric seemed unlikely; they wouldn’t require a full printed lyric sheet, and the energy in the room was suddenly much too somber for that. It was, of course, Me and a Gun, a song I didn’t think she would ever sing again—nor did anyone else in the audience, it seemed, because after the “5 AM…“, there was a collective sound of dismayed surprise. The last time this had been played with any consistency was the 2001 tour, and since then, it’s been played, including this, only ten times—always prompted by a request, and usually in places she had never played before—Turkey, South Africa, Australia after a long hiatus; places where she felt that there was probably someone in the audience who would get something out of hearing it. The last of these rare performances happened in Cape Town, eleven years ago. I wish I could say that the whole room fell into a respectful, transfixed silence, but of course there was one hollering asshole who needed to be told to shut the fuck up.
My first thought, once I got past the shock, was that I couldn’t believe that she would need a lyric sheet to sing a song she used to sing nightly, well over four hundred times—but then I thought, how good for her, that she has healed from that trauma and so wholly moved on from that place in her life that she needs one. Not that she really did—she had the lyrics for security, but glanced at them only once before the second verse, and then dramatically dropped them to the floor before she was through, gripping the piano with that hand instead. It was a gut-wrenching performance, hard to watch—she put herself back in that place, in that car, and I really felt like I was watching her disassociate. She repeated the “I wanna live” line, and went through the whole spectrum of emotions—at one point she was gnashing her teeth so hard that the sound couldn’t get out, at another she fell into a whisper, and towards the very end she channeled the angry Pip energy from that one infamous 2007 live performance with the band, where she brandished an actual kitchen knife as a very real prop. She was holding her mic so close, you could hear every sound she made—every breath, every gulp, every swallow.
It was the rawest, most intense and naked performance I have ever seen, from Tori or anyone—she hardly moved, she was off in her own space—mostly, she had her eyes closed, or her gaze fixed on a spot at the back of the venue—Mark’s booth, perhaps—and when she seemed to be looking at someone, she seemed to be looking right through them. I’ve sat with, and really listened, to this song many times before… or so I thought, but seeing it live is an entirely different beast. I spent about half this performance wide-eyed, with my hands clapped over my mouth, and then came the point where I just wept, for her, for everyone who experienced this, for myself… I don’t think I’ve emotionally recovered from witnessing it yet, as I’m writing this, months later. I hope this helped whoever prompted it in their healing process, and I’m grateful that I got to experience this song once in my life, but I genuinely hope no one asks this of her ever again. What could she possibly follow that up with, I thought? It was Never Seen Blue, the perfect choice to pull the audience back; a love song for Mark, the person who pulled her out from that dark place with his love (“you said, girl if you think / you can turn that violator / you’ll finally be that woman, yes / finally be that woman / that’s been frozen…”). It’s gorgeous, but the added emotional import on this night made it even more special—it was my first time hearing it, and I just kept on weeping right through. This solo section sure was an emotional one-two punch.
Little Amsterdam was an inspired choice—from “me and a gun” to “it wasn’t my bullet“, with a fantastic, rolling delivery of “momma“. I fell in love with this band arrangement the first time I heard it, but it fit the dark mood of this show exceptionally well, and, as usual, she played around with the lyrics, this time improvising “oh ’cause he’ll just watch you die / in those little lies of his / every time it is / another crime it is“. It was a stellar performance, especially the “round and around and around I go” bridge—looking back, it was the best performance of this song I’d ever seen, I was just still too shaken by that solo section to realize it in the moment. Sweet Sangria went with it exceptionally well, and for the first time in a long while, Addition of Light Divided had moved to the second half of the show again, marking a sort of turning point in the set’s mood, nicely book-ending Crucify. All of the performances in this second half had a fire and urgency I’m finding hard to articulate—they were empowering, taking back the patriarchal narrative, almost. In any case, they were stellar, each and every one, with Black-Dove as another stand-out that transported me to the other side of the galaxy.
Honestly, I have no recollection of when the stage-rush even happened—but I seem to remember that people were more well-behaved than on the first night, and waited until the first notes of Devil’s Bane, as had become the accepted custom. We didn’t know it at the time, but it would be the last time it would be played on the tour—it had been a staple at every single show, but was conspicuously absent the following night. The main set ended with Cornflake Girl, as usual, and the first song of the encore was a favorite I hadn’t gotten to hear yet—Sugar! I adore the band version, so I was excited as heck for it… but I’ve got to admit that I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the jazzy new intro. What I always loved about the band version of this track is how powerful the opening piano riff is, and the bassline definitely drowns it out in this new arrangement (and to my ears, it sounds very similar to the riff in (live) 29 Years)… but other than that, it was phenomenal. At the start of the tour, this had been one of the few songs I mourned, convinced that I’d never get to hear it live again; it’s vocally demanding, but she absolutely rose to the occasion.
It wasn’t until later that I noticed the Honey—Sweet (Sangria)—Sugar connection sprinkled into the set… and I got a little fuck-up, which I love, it was adorable, she gave a funny little “fuck!” before getting back into the groove—it didn’t detract from the performance at all though. The final song was Take to the Sky, and while I’ve been enjoying the “Gay! Gay! Gay!” bit (she even added in an “all the way to Florida” tonight, which caused her to mess up again, and improv some lines), I think it should remain a time-capsule arrangement for this very specific tour leg at this very specific moment in time, because it would make no sense whatsoever to bring it over to Europe a year from now—so I hope she buries that time capsule. There were some newly improvised lyrics before going into the I Feel the Earth Move bridge: “gonna take to the sky / where the music plays all the time / and the dancing is all the time / and the magic is all the time / by her piano / now I feel you / are you feeling me too? / I feel you / we all want a better way / we want a better place / we want a better way to love our Mother / now I feel you / and I’m feeling you / all the way to my heart / all over, all over…“.
What a fucking phenomenal show, and the night was nowhere near over—this was the original closing night of the tour, and the podcast guys had quickly planned an end-of-tour afterparty at the Precinct, a gay bar up the road. When the third show was added, they kept it, because there was no way they could get the space on a Friday night anyway. I will preface this part by saying that I’d learned from my previous experience, and had adjusted my edibles dosage. I’d started in the morning, so for most of the day, I was in an exceptionally pleasant mood—but then I fucked up by eating another cookie just before the lights went down for Tori, literally chewing as they jammed to the Juárez intro, thinking that the effect from that morning was bound to fade just when I most wanted it. I was fine for most of the show, but by the time we were outside in the fresh night air, making our way up the block to the Precinct, I quickly realized that I was in almost the same shape as the night before, heading over that edge that topples me into the kind of introspection that makes me overly self-aware. I decided that I wouldn’t make it worse by having anything to drink on top of it, but as soon as I walked through the door, dear Douglas put a White Claw can in my hand… you better believe I made it last for the next three hours!
I’m sorry if anyone talked to me at this afterparty and I seemed aloof—it was a mix of being high and just not feeling particularly comfortable at clubs (although the high helped a little with that). It’s not my scene, but there’s definitely something to be said for a Tori-megamix-playlist of deep-cuts—so I did dance with friends until closing, even if I felt self-conscious doing it. What I was 100% there for were the drag acts: Felony Dodger hosted the evening dressed as Tori, and this party saw the live stage debut of Mrs. Crabby Apple, a Tori drag act all the way from the UK. Her debut consisted of a performance set to a Fat Slut Remix, then Felony Dodger performed Bliss with the help of two piano-necktie-wearing backing dancers, and Mrs. Crabby Apple came back for an encore of Big Wheel—I’ve never seen so many dollar bills fly through the air. Everyone had been given a raffle ticket when going in, and a shit-ton of tour merch was given away, as well as extra prizes for the winner and runner-ups of the Wills and Wants game. And then we danced into the night to a Tori club mix playlist curated by DJ Mateo Segade, until 2AM, at which point the Precinct unceremoniously kicked us out… but how fortunate were we to have one last show to look forward to!
Setlist
Juárez
Bouncing off Clouds / Reindeer King
Crucify
Honey
A Sorta Fairytale
Ocean to Ocean
Past the Mission
Me and a Gun (solo)
Never Seen Blue (solo)
Russia
Little Amsterdam
Sweet Sangria
Addition of Light Divided
Black-Dove (January)
Devil’s Bane
Cornflake Girl» E n c o r e «
Sugar
Take to the Sky / I Feel the Earth Move (Carole King)
watercolorstain 