I stare at the wall knowing on the other side
the storm that waits for me
When the European dates were postponed, there was a glaring hole in the schedule—three whole days off between Paris and Copenhagen. Our money had been on her filling it with a London date at the Royal Albert Hall, because it would be weird for her to not play a single UK show… which turned out to be true, she then added a whole string of UK dates ahead of Brussels. Some weeks later, when we’d all but given up and were thinking of making a day of it at Disneyland, one more show was announced—Lille, the third and final French show of the tour, the most she’s ever played in her career. It’s a small, quaint town near the Belgian border, with a more Flemish than French flair, and we spent the day of the show essentially exploring the city center by eating our way through its most famous patisseries.
Tori walked out in a bubblegum pink outfit with some green details in the pattern—the color-combination made her look like a tube of Maybelline’s Giant Lash mascara, in a cute way! She opened with A Sorta Fairytale, and this show sure ended up giving the impression that she was determined to make up for not playing a single Scarlet’s Walk song in Paris—even though she dropped a hidden treasure that had been on the written setlist, we still got a record five songs from that era, the most on the tour (…so far, anyway!)—three of them, all deep cuts, came right up after Ocean to Ocean, back-to-back. After wild Paris, this was a Ballad to Ballad show!
The first was Crazy, and something about the way she looked tonight was such a treat for the eyes during this song—the outfit worked so well with the green stage lights, it was spellbindingly gorgeous, as was the performance—she was really feeling it, even clutching both hands to her heart on the “I craved it all” line. Next up was the probably best performance of Ruby Through the Looking-Glass yet, the third song in a row with an extended arrangement in which she likes to get lost in long instrumental intros, and let the piano shine with extensive interludes—this show was shaping up to be of the moody, down-tempo, and kinda sad ballad-variety.
The third Scarlet’s Walk song of the triptych was Mrs. Jesus, which I love, but it was bittersweet tonight—it’s a friend’s favorite, he’d be at the next show in Copenhagen, and I just knew there’d be no way she’d play it again so soon, compelling letter requesting it or not, and it was in fact be the last time it showed up in Europe. I was thrilled with the final song of the first half, a bit of an outlier in the set: Suede! It had been MIA since Halle, and tonight would be this song’s final outing on this leg as well. For me, it’s always a highlight of any setlist, and this was no exception, it was darkly seductive, witchy, and simply delicious. I also thought that the Little Sister bridge was a nice call-back to Ruby, the two are connected in my mind for some reason.
She didn’t say a single word before starting the solo song—in fact, she barely gave the guys time to leave the stage, she launched right into it as they were still hurrying off: Silent All These Years. As iconic and essential as this song is, she’d only been doing one solo song per show on most nights, so the fact that this was a repeat was admittedly a let-down… but it really is astonishing how much she still means every single word of it thirty years later, she never phones it in. If anything, with thirty more years of life experience, it’s even more poignant now, especially the “years go by…” bridge—it still hits because of how she chooses her vocal inflections and pauses, and the way she falls into well-placed whispers.
She liked doing things in threes tonight—after three back-to-back Scarlet’s Walk songs in the first half, she gave us three back-to-back P-songs in the second. The first one was Putting the Damage On, and I can’t believe how much I’ve come around to this song thanks solely to this tour’s arrangement—it’s so haunting, it’s like I’m hearing it properly for the first time, and finding all these witty little details in the lyrics that I’d never considered or thought about before… such as how she’s thinking that “her skinny legs could use sun” before wishing for her best impression of Angie Dickinson—known for her great legs, which she’s supposedly had insured for $1 million!
Next up was Playboy Mommy—talk about a one-two punch of the heart-rending kind! You’d think that I’d be prepared for it by now, but the “Gloria” always comes out of nowhere and wrecks me. This turned out to be my last Playboy Mommy of the tour, while the third and last P-song was a debut—an unexpected but very welcome and exciting one: Parasol! It’s one of my top three favorites on The Beekeeper, this was the first time she played it live since it had been the opener on the Unrepentant Geraldines tour, and it was extra special, because it ended up being a one-off. I really don’t understand why—this arrangement sounded absolutely stunning to me, and she got a great reaction from the crowd, a standing ovation!
It’s a shame that she immediately retired it after going through the trouble of working it up with the band, it was so good right out of the gate, it really would’ve deserved more of a spotlight. I don’t know if it was a special setting, but the keyboard sounded incredible to me, and I loved the organ action… doubtlessly this show’s highlight for me, and such a great surprise! I wonder if she went to the Musée d’Orsay on the day off, and was inspired to dust this one off by all the Seurat paintings in their collection. Gosh, it was just so good to hear it again after nine long years, it took me right back to my first extensive tour, still my favorite to this day.
She was all smiles during Addition of Light Divided, which I thought was a great follow-up to Parasol—what with Seurat being a pioneer of pointillism, a technique that creates harmonies of light and color… or maybe I’m reading way too much into it, as is probably all too often the case! Jon triggered the wrong backing track at the end, and instead of Tash joining Tori in singing the climax of “divided“, we got the humming vocalization from the start of the song—if Tori noticed, she took it in stride. The main set ended with Cornflake Girl, after which we rushed the stage.
Given this show’s general vibe, I had expected a mellow encore—my money would have been on Hey Jupiter and Tear In Your Hand—but I couldn’t have been further off. She came back to Metal Water Wood, which was great, but the final song of the night that was a real treat—Taxi Ride, the fifth and final Scarlet’s Walk song of the evening. She’s only ever closed a show with it twice before, both twenty years ago…! At one point the wrong backing track was triggered again, but it wasn’t a repeat of the messy Hamburg debut at all—they got through it just fine. Lilyle is dancing on the table, get it? She blew a whole bunch of kisses into the mic at the end, it was adorable.
With Lille being on a Saturday, and only an hour train ride from Paris, she might have (rightly) figured that a lot of fans would attend both shows, and she definitely went for a completely different mood tonight—there was only a three song overlap of staples! This whole show was like getting bundled up in a heavy, comforting blanket in front of a crackling fireplace, but even though I liked every song played and it was an objectively lovely show that I really wish I could’ve appreciated more in the moment, the truth is that I left the venue disappointed—such a sad, ballad-heavy show can be exactly what I want and need, but it didn’t match my mood that day at all—sometimes that happens. I also had disruptive drunks around me, and there was a maddening “could have been” on the written setlist: Silent All These Years turned out to be an impromptu swap—I can’t honestly say that I noticed it myself, but some people thought that she sounded a little congested tonight, so she may have wanted to go for a song so deeply ingrained in her muscle memory that she could nail it in her sleep? This theory is supported by the fact that the setlist also read “House of the Rising Sun — at any moment”, which is one of her “safety songs” when she isn’t vocally feeling up to par.
Be that as it may, there were two choices for the solo section on the setlist, and SATY wasn’t either one: It was between Indian Summer (which would’ve been a second hidden treasure and a sixth Scarlet’s Walk era song!) and… Bachelorette. I like Indian Summer, and I think it’s the choice that would’ve fit the show’s vibe best, but it was missing out on a potential Bachelorette that really hurt and marred the show for me—it would’ve been perfect for the final French show (“you’ll go to Paris on your own“). I suppose it was an especially painful swap because I’ve never heard it live: It’s a really elusive b-side, it shows up once every blue moon, and is then promptly forgotten about again—if she had played it, it would’ve been its first outing since 2014. I held out hope that she would do it at one of the upcoming shows—that’s often how it goes when she changes the setlist on the spur of the moment—but she shelved the song completely, and it never did end up getting played on the tour, on either leg. At least I already know what I’ll be requesting in France next time—if she can pull out Zero Point, she can definitely dust this one off!
Setlist
A Sorta Fairytale
Ocean to Ocean
Crazy
Ruby Through the Looking-Glass
Mrs. Jesus
Suede
Silent All These Years (solo)
Putting the Damage On
Playboy Mommy
Parasol
Addition Of Light Divided
Cornflake Girl» E n c o r e «
Metal Water Wood
Taxi Ride
watercolorstain 