Tori Amos hates New York City...

...(minus the following two songs):





Thankfully, Pip seems to love it, so that's good. Last night followed the standard Crucify-Cornflake-Bells-Siren-Silent-Cooling formula that Tori always does for important shows. I can't say I blame her, as she can do basic versions of all those songs in her sleep and really kick-ass ones (i.e. last night) when she wants to, but I was still snoring. Digital Ghost-Hotel-Code Red and Pip's set compensated though. Not as good as Albany but it was not as bad as Munich or CPH, so whatever.



Elsewhere in New York, the lovely Rob, pictured below:



took us to Red Bamboo, a name that implies a restaurant with Asian cuisine. This place, however, has the best (and probably most unhealthy, d'oh) fake meat I've ever tasted. After that...er, before that, Rob and I (in the company of Caitlin) walked on the streets and took some really gay, suspiciously couple-looking pictures together. It should be noted that in the first picture, Rob is wearing my clothing, and looks incredibly hot. YOU ARE HOT ANYWAY--DON'T BE INSECURE but Rob, fashion is your friend! The gay pictures are below:





In closing, Tori, I'm rooting for you tonight. Don't let me down!

So yesterday morning in the elevator in the hotel

Caitlin ran into Smitty, Tori's bodyguard and Keith, her tour manager. I found this funny given the Denmark ferry incident I posted about in June. Perhaps it was because we were staying


here?



Albany's only luxury hotel, they say. (But we did NOT pay luxury prices. Thanks Hotwire!. Anyway, we had to say goodbye to Albany at some point



and come to New York City, where I met my good friend


Rob, who doesn't ALWAYS look this thrilled,


for the first time in person. Sakre went to Brooklyn to be with her sister and husband, so Caitlin and I went with Rob and his sister Roxanne to the


PJ Harvey Concert!


after getting MSG'd! by some delicious vegetable dumplings from the horrific Ollie's.

I am really not terribly sure what to think of PJ Harvey's show. For what it's worth, I did recognize over half the songs, but I think I'm too casual a fan to have developed more than an appreciate of Polly's vocal and guitar chops. I thought old songs like "Rid of Me" and "To Bring You My Love" were incredible last night, but the new songs, well, all sounded the same. Overall. I'd give it a B- if I were, like a paid reviewer. Before the show, I ran into my good friend Dana, with whom I only talk occasionally these days (poor girl seems to have a myspace allergy. D'oh!) It's always good to see her though and I am glad that she is doing well.

On the way home, I took some cool shots of a mist-enshrouded Empire State Building. It was purdy.









Oh, and while nice and full of character, our shack, pictured below:





is NOT a luxury hotel. At all!

The first show of the tour was

very very very good. So good, in fact, that I can sum up my (slight) disappointment in two questions:

(1) When did Tori decide that the purpose of an encore was not to reward fans, but to subject them to perfunctory songs?
and (2) why does "Almost Rosey" suck so badly live?


The marquee at the fabulous Palace


Isabel used to be my least favorite doll by far, but this performance was electric.


Isabel takes to the stage


She took total command of the stage when she entered, smoking, in her fire engine red get up, and didn't lose that command until the end of "Tombigbee," which beat the pants off of every 2003 version of that song she did combined. For my money, she should have just not sang "Rosey".



Tori's set was just as amazing. "Sugar" "Black-Dove" "Sneeze" and "Mother Revolution" as the first four non-staple band songs.



Secret time speaks for itself.



The last part of the show--from "God" onward--was kind of standard, but still performed very well, so I guess I can't complain.

And oh! Since someone on @forumz asked, the gift bags are totes that say "VIPosse" and contain a beanie with the same logo.

And according to my two lovely lady friends here in the hotel room, my previous account of the VIP debacle was LESS dramatic than it actually was. I didn't know I was capable of making things less dramatic. Meh. But yeah.


Beanies! Long live the VIP gift bag!


Bed time now!

Oh, and Tori did an improv before solo time which said something to the effect of her "not being back for a long time," which sucks, but it means she WILL, in fact, be back at some point.



So yay!

Clusterfuck

is the word best suited to describe what went down with VIP.


Caitlin at I at Austin airport around 6 AM.


Now, before I go on a total verbal rampage I will give the Tori team this: it's the first day of the tour, the venue staff all have mullets (and are as incompetent as they are unattractive), and, well, I dunno. There is just a very hectic energy.


Doing my hurr.


Basically, we arrived at 4:30 only to be herded into a small waiting area for 90 (ed: I don't know HOW I convinced myself it was 30!) minutes, at which point we were allowed to do the "crowd free merchandise" bonanza while listening to Tori sound check "Tubular Bells/Devils and Gods" "Voodoo" "Almost Rosey" "Tombigbee" and "Virginia". We were then made to wait another half an hour, at which point we were invited into the sound check, where Tori sang "God" "Tear In Your Hand" half of "God" again and then yelled at us to leave because her sound guy was pissing her off. It should be noted that Tori performed in skinny jeans, gold heels, and a cute jacket and hat with no wig. It should also be noted that sound check was prrobably the most technically perfect performances I have seen of Tori thus far this tour, but I can understand why she doesn't perform in "normal" clothes--she just doesn't command the kind of respect that she, ironically, does, wearing a sequined jumpsuit and a chunky wig. More on that later.

Anyway, we were then directed upstairs and waited about 10 minutes for Tori to come out. We were advised to have our cameras out and signing items ready to be signed, which I felt kind of, um, rude considering that we had paid for this.


Tori and I, myself looking cheesetastic


In short, for my money, listening to sound check through the door and doing the regular meet and greet would have been a better utilization of time and, more importantly, free. Tori was nice and all and Chelsea was actually really cool to me RE: something that might happen in the future, but it was still a disorganized mess.

OK, food and the show awaits. Wish me luck RE: taping!

EDIT: You also get a tourbook with the VIP bag!

Tomorrow...

...I will be in Albany scrambling around to look hot for my VIP meeting/soundcheck with Tori. Today, I am in Austin scrambling around trying to make sure I don't forget to pack anything. Meh.

Speaking of scrambling, I just made the mistake of driving home through the UT campus and I swear it was like walking on the ground and hoping you don't step on an ant. Those mofos are EVERYWHERE. It was literally like an infestation of sorts. So stressful!

Because of the congestion there and my decision to go stuff my face, I'm a little behind schedule today and probably still won't get any work done on my Statement of Purpose for grad school, but whatever. I would imagine it could be worse.

As far as the tour goes, my goals are basically the same. I am going to attempt to capture each and every tour debut from start to finish is as close to immaculate quality as my seats allow. That means no "Big Wheel" or "Cornflake Girl" here, folks. You know how I roll.

Now here's to hoping homegirl debuts something incredible tomorrow night!

Two more months to go!

Well, all my thugs and thug misses, the US tour will be upon us in less than two months, and I'm happy to report I'll be at the following shows:

Albany
NYC (x2)
Syracuse
Philly
Dallas
Houston
Austin
San Diego
Santa Barbara
Anaheim
LA (x2)

And I'll be youtube-ing as much as pigheaded American security allows. Woo hoo!

Back in the USA!

A few minutes ago I departed the United Kingdom for what is hopefully the last time for a very long while, having only been there a couple hours en route from Copenhagen to St. Louis (via Chicago). Why, you ask, am I so vocal in my dislike for this island? Well, in addition to having currency twice as strong as my own, food half as good as my own, bad dental care, a pretentious accent and a rape of my mother language, the British Airport security system makes its American counterpart seem like a tea party. After arriving in Terminal 4 on my British Airways Airbus A319, I was funneled onto a small bus that drove through a barb-wire enclosed tunnel to Terminal 3 where I waited over an hour in line to clear security—though I had already done so in Copenhagen! I also had to show my passport and boarding card no less than four times each. I have never in my life experienced such a cluster fuck—and I’ve been in many questionable situations. To assume that such a setup augments air travel security even minimally suggests that single-celled organisms are the brains behind all this. If anything, such a disorganized and tense mess would provide increased opportunities for “terrorists”—if you believe in such nonsense—to do their dirty deeds.

In other news, Copenhagen was a strange show in that it had—minus what was only the second bowing of “Cruel” in the past six years—the most standard setlist that Tori Amos could have written but was performed better—ironicallly, minus said “Cruel”—than almost any other show this tour, which IS saying a lot. Despite the setlist monotony about which I’ve whined intermittently for the past three weeks, this tour is hands down the tightest band outing Mrs. Hawley has ever done. It’s not as possessed as 1998 or pissed off as 1999 (on the whole anyway—some parts are), but it makes 2002-3 look like a bad dream, and I would argue a joke. The energy is through the roof, Tori’s singing is perfect, and the three main musicians (T, Matt, and John) function as a single unit. Dan Phelps is pretty OK, too, and I imagine once he learns all the songs the quartet will be unstoppable. So if you’re having any doubts as to whether or not to attend a show this year, don’t doubt. Whether or not you should attend more than one will depend on how much the setlist variance increases in the coming weeks (ed: there should be no problem; never is), but a safe bet is to see multiple shows in the same city/geographical area.

I love arbitrary rankings as some of you all know, so I’m go ahead and rank the shows (1 being the best and the final number being the worst) I saw as well as—for shits and grins—the cities I visited. I’m going to list Copenhagen as my favorite city for now because I loved the ambiance so much, and I think I’d love it even more if I got to spend more than one and two-half days there. Remember, though, that not one show was “bad,” though some were more boring than others. This is the first tour of Tori’s I’ve ever seen where a bad setlist has not ruined a show.

Shows:

1. Nurnberg
2. Dusseldorf
3. Florence
4. Rome
5. Amsterdam
6. Paris
7. Stuttgart
8. Vienna
9. Copenhagen
10. Milan
11. Munich

Cities (including 2005 trip)

1. Copenhagen
2. Amsterdam
3. Rome
4. Hamburg
5. Vienna
6. Paris
7. Frankfurt
8. Antwerp
9. Stuttgart
10. Glasgow
11. Berlin
12. Dusseldorf
13. Bonn
14. Nurnberg
15. Newcastle
16. Nottingham
17. Manchester
18. Rotterdam
19. Wolverhampton
20. Milan
21. Brussels
22. Munich
23. Florence
24. London

My lovely sister purchased us a trip to my alma mater (Tampa) for the next few days, after which I’ll be returning to St. Louis for a few weeks to get operated on—don’t worry, it’s not terribly major)—make money rent-free, and prepare for a September return to Austin. During that time, I’ll be sure and post more goodies (under the entries for their respective cities) from my trip that I didn’t get to the first time.

This blog will not be (formally) updated until the ADP tour hits the US sometime in October, so here’s hoping that some crazy following the rest of the tour through Europe can keep videoing things. Speaking of which, I’d like to thank the 50,000 people who’ve viewed my videos and the several thousand who’ve (allegedly) kept reading this blog. This was my first venture into comprehensive multimedia reporting and the support—even if it’s just random IMs or myspace messages—makes me feel very good for having dedicated a bit of my vacation to bring y’all goodies. So thanks!

OK, back to wanting to slit my wr—I mean enjoying my 3029420938 hour flight.

xx