I guess on days like this
You know who your friends are
Hamburg was one of the handful of dates I’d skipped on the Native Invader tour, so this was my first show here since 2014, and I was slightly apprehensive, because as much as I enjoyed that show, I hated the venue—I remember the stage being very high, the seats cramped, and really distracting lights that kept going on in windows on either side of the stage. Funnily, this was the show where we were chatted up by one of her drivers, and I felt vindicated, because he said that the crew hates this venue too—there is only one lift, and the piano barely clears it by half an inch! And then a tour friend who works at this venue stealthily recorded soundcheck, which included three songs that hadn’t been played yet this year: Pancake, Never Seen Blue, and Past the Mission. Spoiler: She would end up playing two of those in Europe… but not tonight.
The venue will never be a favorite, but I was pleasantly surprised—since the stage is so high, they’d taken out some rows in the front, so even if you were sitting close (I got to swap my original seat for a center-left row two), you could still see her well, and not just from the waist up. It also created plenty of space for the stage-rush later, and there were no distracting lights during the show this time, not even once! What distracted me instead was my own head; I was sat by myself, and in a kind of weird funk, with lots of intrusive thoughts that didn’t let me immerse myself as much as I would’ve liked—similarly to the first Dublin show. It happens sometimes, and I resent my brain whenever it does, but it is what it is.
After opening the previous two shows with A Sorta Fairytale, God was well overdue, and I thought that she sounded perfectly fine. I’m making a point of mentioning that, because… well. One of the things that had been quite maddening during this tour was the utter lack of promo—other than two small things for the BBC and NPR around the album’s release, there had been no radio shows, no TV appearances, nothing—unheard of. As a result, she hadn’t been getting much press despite touring extensively, but today, I’d spied an NDR (a Hamburg-based public radio and TV broadcaster) film crew, and I was excited that we’d be getting some footage, and maybe even an interview, since they’d been there hours in advance, ready to go in the stage-door when soundcheck was over… alas.
They did end up airing a short feature, but the voice-over was scathing—because, they claim, mere minutes before she was due on stage, someone from Tori’s management told them that “tonight is not a good night to record her voice“; they were not allowed to film her singing, and they were asked to leave the auditorium after two and a half-minutes instead of the agreed-upon three songs. The result of kicking press out? NDR essentially called her a diva who can’t sing, and the piece ends with “pity!“. This is an established, respected, wide-reaching broadcaster who has supported her throughout her career, and months later I am still in disbelief at how the film crew they’d sent was treated.
Team Tori shot themselves in the foot by doing that, and what makes it even worse was that there was really no reason to draw negative attention to her voice—this show was no Halle, she sounded fine! She’d had a day off! It really boggles the mind, because she seemed to be in a great mood too, and since Hamburg is a major port city, this Ocean to Ocean—oddly, the only obvious water-song on tonight’s setlist—was a passionate one.
“You know, it’s one of those funny things, when you’ve played a hall so many times, you actually know exactly where you’re going… and I have the worst sense of direction, I mean if I go somewhere, go the other way, trust me—I will walk into the Zombie Apocalypse… but here, it’s sort of like coming home, I’ve played it so many times, it’s like a sister, so thanks for coming tonight, to one of my favorite venues!“
She brought Daisy Dead Petals back yet again, and I had to laugh, because it had been on my pre-tour list of geographically pertinent “never-going-to-happen-but-I’ll-give-it-a-shot-anyway” requests because of the reference to a Hamburger maid (whatever that is!). Turns out that there’s crazier things than this unlikely request… such as the fact that asking for this song would be obsolete and redundant by the time the Hamburg show rolled around, because it would become a tour staple after thirty years of being one of the most elusive b-sides! She was so smug when she sang that line too, she knew exactly what she was doing.
She followed up with a pair of Scarlet’s Walk deep-cuts: Don’t Make Me Come to Vegas had a playful, groovy intro and featured a fallboard slam; it was a great performance, and would turn out to be the song’s last appearance on the European leg of the tour. I couldn’t place the next one for the longest time… it was Mrs. Jesus, but I was bamboozled for the second time running, because the intro jam sounds just like the start of Amber Waves. There’s some nice Beatles-references in there, and with Hamburg famously being the city where the then unknown band spent two years honing their live performance skills and laying the foundations for their international career, I really shouldn’t have been surprised for it to pop up on the setlist!
The final song of the first part was introduced by her saying that “we have a lot of requests coming, very soon, and this is one of ’em, so here we go, hopefully you get what you want“. It was a stunningly atmospheric Purple People, a hidden gem that hadn’t been played since Bremen—funnily, the geographically closest city to Hamburg, even though with the way the tour’s routing zig-zags through Europe, that show had been a week and a half ago. Without introduction or further ado, she launched straight into a haunting Cooling as tonight’s solo song—two Spark b-sides, back-to-back.
I thought it was a great pairing for that alone, until it hit me that they also share two rather similar lyrics and sentiments—”thunder wishes it could be the snow“, and “fire thought she’d really rather be water instead“. This Cooling wasn’t as fiery as the brambles bridge often makes it—fire decided it was going to be water tonight, indeed—but it felt like sinking into a warm, comforting bubble bath, and it earned her a standing ovation. From the b-sides, she turned to a hidden treasure—a languid, ten-minute long Ruby Through the Looking-Glass, although the intro had me think we were about to get Horses for a good while.
The next song was supposed to be the big surprise debut for this leg: Taxi Ride, but it was a doomed attempt from the start—it was adorably funny though! Jon hit the wrong pedal, because what started instead of the Taxi Ride harmonies was the “stay right here” backing vocals for Your Cloud, and after he started the correct one, it got choked off, at which point she pulled her hands away from the keyboard with a jolt as if she’d gotten burnt. She just cracked up, it was so cute, and she kept rolling with it even though the track fucked up several more times, it was either the wrong one, out of sync, got cut off too soon, or simply didn’t play when it was supposed to… everything that could possibly go technically wrong with a backing track did!
The whole audience was in stitches, but she was laughing right along with us, as was Jon—so while this performance was a mess, it was unique, funny, and certainly memorable! At the end of it she threw up her hands with a shrug in what could’ve looked like frustration if she hadn’t smiled through the entire thing, and when she got a standing ovation for the attempt, she told us that we are too nice. She wasn’t fazed, but I got the sense that they were all extra determined to deliver a tight performance after that messy Taxi Ride, and what followed was a stunning Playboy Mommy. In my mind, there’s a connection with Purple People, and it’s not just the alliteration—half the times I’ve seen Playboy Mommy they’ve both been in the same set.
The main set ended on an upbeat note, the next song being Beauty of Speed—Jon played the hype man, encouraging everyone to clap along. I had a perfect view of her crossed arms from my seat tonight; I have no earthly clue if it’s necessary from a musical perspective—if it makes some transition easier to play, or if it’s purely showing off—but either way, it sure as heck is photogenic! Cornflake Girl closed the main set, and she was so animated during it, it was infectious, and I could barely sit still until the moment we got to rush at the end and I could leap over the seat in front of me.
The first encore song was Body and Soul, and she gave it her all, crotch grab on “women’s gold” included, and finally, my favorite closer: Tear in Your Hand, which had been on the past two written setlists but replaced with some other song on a last minute whim. She very rarely addresses the crowd at the end of a show these days, but tonight, she yelled out “we love you so much” at the end. I’d been in a melancholy funk when the show started, and even though I was more distracted than I would’ve liked, this was a balm for the soul, and I definitely left feeling better than I did when I walked in, even though this wasn’t the show I had expected.
Vocally, it was a consistent show, and I liked every song, but with all the album deep-cuts and b-sides featured, I imagine that the more casual kind of fan might’ve been disappointed. The choices do seem a bit random, and I can’t quite discern a theme; with its canals and nautical history, Hamburg often inspires a water-song-heavy setlist, but any allusion to water, except for Ocean to Ocean, was much more subtle than usual tonight: “Walking on the water“, “this ocean is wrapped around that pineapple tree“, “you could almost drown her waterfall“… the references are there if you really want to dig for them, but they’re not at all obvious.
Setlist
God
Ocean to Ocean
Daisy Dead Petals
Don’t Make Me Come to Vegas
Mrs. Jesus
Purple People
Cooling (solo)
Ruby Through the Looking-Glass
Taxi Ride
Playboy Mommy
Beauty of Speed
Cornflake Girl» E n c o r e «
Body and Soul / Personal Jesus (Depeche Mode)
Tear in Your Hand
watercolorstain 