Seems as if we’re circling for very different reasons
But one day the Eagle has to land
I’m not Brussels’ biggest fan, but I was excited for this show—the first in Continental Europe in 1,957 (!) days, over five years! We got here by Eurostar the day before the show, and spent most of the evening writing our letters—I let her know just how long it had been in mine, and my friend and I teamed up for a request, paper-clipping our letters together so she would read them back-to-back. This show marked the first time she played a show on the actual day of Kurt Cobain’s death anniversary since… well, since it happened, but no one knew it then. I was originally going to ask her to bring back the American Pie intro into Smells Like Teen Spirit for the occasion, but since she already played the latter in Dublin and mentioned American Pie without singing it, we thought we’d try a different approach… we asked for Real Men, in honor of Kurt and all he stood for, the maybe last real larger-than-life rock star.
On the show day itself, Brussels actually managed to redeem itself—we met up with friends and played another game of Cards Against Humani-T, saw a Magritte exhibit on a free museum day, took ourselves on a tour of all the pissing sculptures trying to manifest Space Dog, and ate lots of waffles and chocolate. It’s the venue that turned out to be the worst of tour—I’d seen her here in 2014, and thought I had good memories of it, but maybe the fantastic meet and greet and memorable show colored them. What other venue expects you to pay to use the restroom?!
There was a bit of a kerfuffle right at the start… this was the first early show of tour, she started half an hour earlier than usual, a lot of people missed that memo, and either didn’t hear the bells, or assumed they were for the opening act. Fact is that the entire front row and quite a bit of the front stalls was empty for the first few minutes of the opening song… which was a new one, A Sorta Fairytale!
It was so unexpected as an opener, but I guess if she’s really set on making this leg of the tour Scarlet’s 21st Anniversary Walk, it perfectly tracks! At this stage of course we didn’t know if this was going to get added into the opener-rotation, if she was going to stick with this for the rest of the dates, if Juárez would ever come back since Europe didn’t get to hear it last year, or if A Sorta Fairytale would remain a one-off because it was her first time playing the continent in over five years.
Even without Wampum Prayer for the full Scarlet’s Walk tour throwback-experience, it works really well as an opener, and the “riding by” backing vocals made a comeback again—we’ll see if going forward, she’ll stick with them, or not, as in this year’s debut in Dublin. The lights are so stunning, they make me feel as if I’m driving along the Ventura in a convertible as the setting sun sparkles off the water under an Indian Summer sky.
She then referenced my letter in her hello-speech: “I’ve been told that it’s been a long time since I’ve been to the Continent… I can’t remember how long… it’s been so long, I’ve missed you so much, oh my God, good food. Clear skies, no rain… Brexit, they’re out of their fucking mind“. Ocean to Ocean had a lot of fire tonight—I find that it can sometimes be one of the plodding staples, but she was plugged in for this one. There was generally a certain sassiness about her movements and facial expressions at this show that I hadn’t seen on the tour so far, she was super confident… as she should’ve been, she not only sounded great, this was also my favorite hair on this leg of the tour!
Caught a Lite Sneeze had some really fierce bits, and I loved watching her during the intro: She was smiling to herself before she joined in, liking whatever Jon was laying down. She briefly crossed her legs and turned to look at him, then sat at the piano with her eyes closed and her hands at the ready, just letting it wash over her, then hunched over the keys in concentration. The next two songs were a really lovely pairing: Honey and Sugar, I see what she did there (then, later in the set, she rounded it out with Sweet Sangria!). This Honey-arrangement is so great, it suits her current voice so well… I’ve always loved the song, but it’s like 31 year old Tori wrote this song for 59 year old Tori to sing, her low register and vocal fry sounds so good on it, and the added life experience makes it so much more ominous.
Adore the song, but I’m still not fully sold on this new arrangement for Sugar, but I will say that this was a really good one—there were fallboard slams and hammering aplenty, and a fumbled moment turned into a repeated “sweet, sweet, sweet” that was giving Plugged Waitress vibes, half yelled and half moaned into the microphone before going into a fierce bridge! From Sneeze, through Honey, to Sugar, and finally, the loveliest Lust—a triplet of failed relationships before a love-letter to Mark (…even though he didn’t turn on the microphone in time and we missed the first two lines!).
And then… another reference to my letter (for all I know, there may have been other people who thought of writing to her about Kurt, but she definitely blew my friend, who was closer and wearing a Nirvana t-shirt, a kiss after the solo section).
“The next two songs are driven by requests… this is a very memorable day for some of us. Some weren’t there, maybe you were little, maybe you can’t remember, but you might have felt something. 29 years ago today, one of the greatest musicians and poets of our time died, and there was mourning for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks…”
And she went on about how she already talked about this special memory of hers in Ireland (I really got the feeling that she was kicking herself for not having saved it for this day in the first place!), and concluded by saying that people have been asking her to play this in honor of this genius, which is a white lie, but I’ll let it slide! I’m sorry for being indirectly responsible for a solo song repeat, but I adored this—the Smells Like Teen Spirit in Dublin was probably an overall stronger performance, but the American Pie intro really made this one. There was a deep rumbling piano intro, and she sang an entirely different part of the song compared to what she used to do back in the day—she skipped the usual two verses entirely, and didn’t sing “the day the music died” at all, repeating “this will be the day that I die” as the connecting line instead—it turned the pairing from melancholy and wistful to full-on dark and doomy.
Curtain Call oddly worked as a direct follow-up—she was really in it, meaning and feeling every word. Her voice broke on “then a voice calls me back“, she sounded close to letting out a sob, and at one point, the microphone got a big ol’ suggestive lick. Sweet Sangria followed, and I was thrilled, it’s by far my favorite of the bass-intro-jam songs she’s been rotating, and as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t come up often enough—it deserves more of a spotlight than Mother Revolution, that’s for sure. My friend gifted her a bottle of Spanish red wine, and asked for a few wine and drink related songs in the note that went along with it, this being at the top of his list.
Europe’s first Addition of Light Divided was life-affirming and wonderful, I feel like there were more little piano flourishes than usual. The only band debut of the night was preceded by some fun little plinks—I don’t think anyone had any idea what could possibly be coming up… it was Wednesday, being debuted on a wednesday, of course, because she is the most literal person alive! They were having such fun with it, and so was I! I liked it a lot the only other time I heard it, solo at the Baloise Sessions eight years ago, but this is a song that is one thousand percent improved by the band, the percussion is so charming.
I had the perfect seat to enjoy the light-show during Beauty of Speed—I would never have guessed that this song would become a tour staple, but it’s growing on me more and more every time I hear it… the genius line-break and ensuing word play on “I was built to tolerate your temper… ature / it fluctuates” delights me to no end. The front row was really tight, but that didn’t stop me from climbing over the two vacant rows of opulent red seats in front of me for the encore… even though it earned me a few bruises on my thighs. Stage-rush-kisses, I call them, and it hasn’t been a proper tour if I don’t have a few by the end!
The encore consisted of Body and Soul with Personal Jesus, one of her most inspired mash-ups in my book, and Cornflake Girl—classic! She seemed in really high spirits throughout this show, she was sassy and glowing, it was a total blast—clearly, after Ireland, she slowed down on the band debuts front, but she was still giving us at least one on most nights, which is a gift, and this show was the perfect celebratory way to kick off the long-awaited European portion of the tour.
Setlist
A Sorta Fairytale
Ocean to Ocean
Caught a Lite Sneeze
Honey
Sugar
Lust
American Pie (Don McLean) (solo)
Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana) (solo)
Curtain Call
Sweet Sangria
Addition Of Light Divided
Wednesday
Beauty of Speed» E n c o r e «
Body and Soul / Personal Jesus (Depeche Mode)
Cornflake Girl
watercolorstain 