Friday Fabulous! (16) The mostly Tori Amos edition

What am I excited about this week?

1. Lauren Mechling is having a contest at her blog for a boxed set of 6 books from Betsy-Tacy's high school years. Lauren describes this classic series by Maud Hart Lovelace as Little House on the Prairie meets Gossip Girl. Ooooh!


2. The Bad Boy Bonanza is still going on...and there are so far only 9 entrants and 8 guaranteed winners. That makes your odds of winning fab prizes VERY good, and all you have to do is preorder Becca Fitzpatrick's HUSH HUSH which is going to be amazing anyway. What are you waiting for?!


3. Laina of Laina has too much spare time, really does have too much spare time because she was nice enough to offer to program a three column layout for my blog, which I've wanted for a very long time. However, once I uploaded it, Daniel noticed that he'd have to adjust my header, so it is back to the 2 column layout for now. Thank you Laina! You're the best!!


4. My first Tori Amos concert of this tour was in Basel. I had a 6th row ticket and got an amazing setlist including Girl (the first performance in 6 years - my jaw dropped), Josephine, Pandora's Aquarium, Siren and Curtain Call. 6 of the songs were debuts for me which is amazing considering this was my 11th show overall since 1996. I have now heard every song from Little Earthquakes live!


5. And then it was on to Zurich. This wasn't my favorite setlist, despite 4 debuts (for me). Still, lovely performances and a FRONT ROW seat (thanks to an upgrade) made this an amazing show. I never get tired of Hotel, Tear in Your Hand, Mother and Space Dog. And I loved hanging out with Rachel and Steve who are following the entire European leg of the tour.


6. Last minute, I decided to drive to Luxembourg (3 hrs away) to see my first general admission Tori show. Because I got there 5 hours early (just missing out on meeting Tori herself), I was able to get front row and was thisclose to Tori the whole set. Highlights were Juarez, Smells Like Teen Spirit, and a rocking Raspberry Swirl. No debuts for me this show (the first time that's happened in 13 shows), but I did hear her soundcheck Northern Lad and Cars and Guitars while I was outside waiting...does that count?! Rahib did a very thorough run-down of the whole show experience on his blog if you are interested.


Here's a pic from the lovely Shireen to show just how close we were to the tiny stage. I could almost reach out and touch her hooker heels ;)



How about you? What are you excited about this week?

Friday Fabulous! (12)

Things I am excited about this week:

1. The Nerds Heart YA Tournament: 20 bloggers are charged with picking one of 16 books from 2008 as the underdog title of the year. These are less well-known books that the panel feels deserve more attention. I am co-judging in the first round with Ali from Worducopia and we are reading ALIVE AND WELL IN PRAGUE, NEW YORK by Daphne Grab and STOP ME IF YOU THINK YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE by David Yoo (ummm..yeah...we got two of the longest titles). Look for reviews and our decision on Sunday. For more info including links to all the panelists' blogs and a judging bracket with all 16 titles, see Becky's fab post.


2. ChickLitTeens let me know that Shannon Greenland is offering up the 5th book in her SPECIALISTS series FIGHT TO THE FINISH for free on her website. Every Monday, she'll post a new chapter (so far, the prologue and first two chapters are up). I really enjoyed the first four books which I read last summer, and I think I can manage reading a chapter a week online.


3. Natasha of Maw Books Blog is hosting the Bloggiesta this weekend, a challenge to bloggers to catch up on their blogs. I can't participate because I am woefully behind on my "required" reading, but I've done some of the mini-challenges and plan to do some more.


4. I got a big box of books from Penguin this week to weigh down my sagging bookshelves even more. This gives me an extra push to get started on my First Chapter Challenge - so be on the lookout for that soon.


5. Ok, now the new kitty's name choices have been narrowed down to Sawyer or Finn. Finn is way ahead in the Facebook voting, but considering how his favorite new activity is chewing on all my books, I'd say either literary name is appropriate. Vote for your choice in the comments!


6. The Depeche Mode and All American Rejects concerts were both tons of fun. Depeche Mode played the Commerzbank Arena to a sold out crowd and my friend Tracy were on the 50 yard line so to speak. So we what we saw looked liked ants dancing, but energy was high.


All American Rejects played The Batschkapp, an intimate venue with a capacity of 700. Lead singer Tyson Ritter said it had been a long time since they had been so close to their fans (I was in the 3rd row - very, very close). As you can see from this picture, Tyson is hot, sweaty, and sweet (letting his fangirls hold his hand!). They didn't play a long set, but were very talkative and playful. Tyson even crowdsurfed.

Your turn! What are you excited about this week?

VIP Tori Amos experience: Lawrence, KS

One week ago, Nick and I had the pleasure of meeting Tori Amos for the first time after being fans since 92. I was lucky enough to snag Platinum VIP tickets (only 24 total available) so we got to sit in on a portion of her soundcheck & meet her and have something signed (+ we had 8th row center seats and got a VIP bag, hat and tour booklet).

This is what went down: we arrived at 5 pm and got wristbands and our loot. Tori was running late so she had just started soundcheck when we got there. The doors were so heavy that we couldn't hear much through them but we did recognize that she was doing Clyde (introspective doll)'s songs so we knew we'd get her (a relief for me since I did not want political Isabel for the third time out of three shows). I also heard a bit of Sugar which was exciting and gave me hope that I would finally hear this favorite live.

It was after 6 pm before we were finally able to go in. Nick and I got seats in the front row and then she came out. She explained a bit about soundcheck and then played Spark and Concertina for us. She messed up on Concertina, but otherwise it seemed more like a private concert than a soundcheck - very cool.

Next, we were ushered into a back room to meet Tori. By this time my low blood sugar was kicking in and I felt faint from not eating anything since a light lunch. When she came in with her bodyguard, we also got a glimpse of her 7 yr old daughter Tash. Tori asked Tash if she wanted to say hi to us and she got a little shy. She gave Tori a hug and skipped away. Tori then turned her full attention to us and people went up 1 or 2 at a time to talk with her. Nick and I were mid-way through the line so we snapped a few pictures while we waited. Here's one (that is a wig btw):

Finally we were up. We talked with her for a few minutes about her music (I told her Winter had been our father/daughter dance at my wedding) , that our first concert had also been in Lawrence back in 96 (she said "You seem really young to have been going to concerts back then"), about Neil Young (apparently he wants to tour with her) and then I requested Beulah Land and asked about Velvet Revolution (she wrote them on her hand and said "Well, they can come out again"). She then signed my copy of her book Piece by Piece and Nick's tour booklet. We also posed for this picture:

Before the concert, Nick and I just had time to go out and grab a pear (me) and granola bar (Nick) and check out the Phelps protesters (they claim Tori Amos is a "gay enabler" because she has many gay fans).

Opening guy was Yoav again who is growing on me - I do like the song Club Thing quite a bit.

Then Tori as Clyde comes out with

Bouncing off Clouds

Little Earthquakes

Juarez *

Little Amsterdam

Beauty of Speed *

Girl Disappearing *

Tori as Tori's set was

Big Wheel

Crucify
Sugar *
Cornflake Girl
Mother Revolution *
Caught A Lite Sneeze

Frog On My Toe *
Mother *
Virginia *
A Sorta Fairytale
Code Red
Precious Things
Hey Jupiter

* Songs I heard live for the first time!! Amazing considering this was my ninth show, 3rd this tour. She really does change it up.

Nick and I both adored this show - definately the one I enjoyed the most this tour. A lot of fan favorites plus a couple of rarities and FINALLY hearing Sugar which totally rocks live.

Got the bootleg (http://www.toribootlegs.com/) already!

Made it to D.C. & Tori Amos Concert

When I woke up at 4:45 yesterday morning in Frankfurt, I checked the status of my flights to DC only to discover that they were cancelled. When I called Delta to ask what was up they told me Air France (my carrier) was on strike and then they booked me on new flights which would get me to DC at 5 pm if everything went right (but how often do things go right on the airlines these days)? I was originally supposed to get in at 1:30 pm and Heather and I had gotten tickets to the Tori Amos concert which would start at 8 pm - so you can imagine my concern.
One advantage of my new flights was that they left later so I could sleep longer and Daniel was able to take me the airport to see me off. But I would only have 1 1/2 hrs in Atlanta to get through a) passport control b) getting my bag, going through customs and rechecking my bag c) going through the security check and d) getting to A terminal from E terminal. And then my flight landed 20 min late! So I was thinking I was doomed. But much to my surprise, there were no lines at a) and c) and my bag b) was one of the first to come. d) was no problem and I arrived at my gate right at boarding where I also found out I was upgraded - though first class on a 1 1/2 hr flight only means a larger seat, tea in a real china mug and a bag of chips when coach got nothing to eat.
Weather in D.C.? Pouring down rain. Heather picked me up at National airport and we took the metro to her apartment. We ate some hummos and crackers and then headed off to DAR Constitution Hall. Unfortunately for me, Tori opened her set again as the political doll (saw her in Frankfurt) so out of the 4 possible dolls, I have seen 1 twice. Wouldn't be such a big deal, except that her set was almost identical to the Frankfurt set - though I did get Scarlet's Walk for the first time.
Highlights of Tori's set for me were Hotel, Leather (first time seeing it live if you can believe that), and the aforementioned Scarlet's Walk. I did get quite a few repeats from the Frankfurt show and I did not get Sugar or Northern Lad (my faves which I still haven't heard!!) but her voice was really on and it was a great performance. Heather really enjoyed it, though we both were really tired by the last songs. We ended up leaving during the last encore to beat the crowd to a taxi and get home to sleep.

The Decemberists at Batschkapp, Frankfurt

After a pretty lazy weekend where I mostly vegged (Daniel was more active - and we did have Daria over for lunch on Sunday), we ventured out once again last night to that hot, loud concert venue, the Batschkapp (we saw the Lemonheads there a few months ago, you might recall), to see the Decemberists - an indie folk-rock band who just had their major label release "The Crane Wife". We don't have that CD, we only have "Her Majesty the Decemberists" and naturally, they did not play anything from that album. But I have to say, these guys put on an entertaining show. Even though I did not recognize a single song, I still had a really good time and was very impressed. Daniel also really enjoyed it and we'll definately be getting some more of their music.

The lead singer was also really talkative and funny. Here's a quote - "Thanks for coming out tonight. It might have been embarrassing for us if you hadn't. Of course you'd have been a lot more comfortable at home, sitting on a sofa. But we're glad you came."

The setlist (I might have missed a song or two):
Oceanside (***)
Close to you (short, playful cover of the carpenters song - incomplete)
July, July (***)
We both go down together (****)
Engine Driver (****)
Shankhill butchers (****)
Crane Wife 1 + 2 (***)
Island (**)
The Perfect Crime #2 (**)
O Valencia (***)
Sixteen Military Wives (**)
After the bombs (***)

Encore:
Glacier Bay (cover?)
The Mariner's Revenge (**)

**** Exellent - going to buy on itunes now - I recommend you check it out
*** Very entertaining live and will probably buy
** Good song but probably wouldn't listen to it very often

It's always inspiring to see great shows - whether it be concerts, art exhibitions, book readings, etc.

Oh - I also finished a book this weekend - Michael Palmer's The Fifth Vial (Thanks Linda!). It was sooo exciting I didn't put it down until it was finished. More fodder for those organ harvesting urban legends :)

Tori Amos at the Alte Oper, Frankfurt: ADP Tour

So, Saturday night, June 30th, Charlotte and I went to see Tori Amos in concert. We had 12th row seats (pretty close) on the left side. The opera house was very full, but there were a couple of empty seats here and there (one right next to me in fact).
The opening act was Josh Radin who was ok. He did a couple of duets with Schuyler Fisk (the daughter of Sissy Spacek!!) that were much better than his stuff by himself.
Anyway, this was Tori's 23rd show on the American Doll Posse Tour and her 5th appearance as Isabel, the "political" doll in her posse. The idea is that she opens each show with a set from one of the 4 dolls: Isabel, Pip, Clyde and Santa (each with her own personality and different wig). Isabel songs on the album are not my favorites, so I wasn't thrilled about getting her (I wanted Clyde or Pip), but Tori is such a great performer, I still (with one exception) enjoyed the set. (The above picture was taken during Isabel's set by the way).

Isobel's set:
Yo George
Sweet Dreams
Tubular Bells (theme from the Exorcist)
Devils and Gods
Almost Rosey
In the Springtime of His Voodoo

Yo George, Devils and Gods, and Almost Rosey are ok songs from the new album, and the only Isabel song I really like from it (Mr. Bad Man), she left out this show, though she did play it at her other appearances. I did like Sweet Dreams (a Little Earthquakes B-side which I had only heard 1 other time in concert) and Tubular Bells which was really wild and cool. In the Springtime... is a track from Boys for Pele which I never had (and never liked so did not miss) because I had the import version (bought in Japan) of that album.

Then there was a costume change and Tori came out as herself. The next songs (with the band) were:

Big Wheel
Spring Haze
Parasol
Cornflake Girl
Bells for Her
Glory of the 80's

In general, I prefer Tori without the band, because the band can be overpowering and distract from Tori's piano and voice. Big Wheel is her first single off the new album, and though I am not crazy about it on the album, it was great live, performed with a lot of energy and audience interaction. Spring Haze (from To Venus and Back) is one of my favorite songs and this was my second time seeing it live. Parasol is a good one from her last album (The Beekeeper) but I did see it last tour and wouldn't have minded something I haven't heard yet instead. Cornflake Girl is of course one of her most recognizable songs (from Under the Pink way back in 1994) and though I have seen it live 3 times before, I was more than happy to have it again. Bells for Her is also an Under the Pink track which she plays on harpsichord as is very pretty but I've seen it twice before live. Glory of the 80's is a To Venus and Back song that I hadn't seen live before and really like and enjoyed.

Next was a solo set with just Tori and the piano:
Silent all These Years
The Wrong Band
Marianne

Silent all These Years is a classic track from her first album Little Earthquakes which I have already seen live twice. But The Wrong Band is a super rare song from Under the Pink which Tori has only played in concert a total of 8 times (out of nearly 1000 concerts) so it was a real treat. She said she would probably mess it up, and she did stop in the middle and say "scheisse", but loved it! Marianne is a beautiful Boys for Pele song that I had only seen once before live.

Then there was another short set with the band and 2 encores:

Putting the Damage On
God
Code Red
—————————
Precious Things
Bouncing Off Clouds
—————————
Tombigbee
Hey Jupiter

Out of this group, all the songs were great. Code Red and Bouncing off Clouds are two of my favorites from the new album. God, Precious Things, Putting the Damage On and Hey Jupiter are favorites from early albums that I have seen many times live but never get old. And Tombigbee is a Scarlet's Walk B-Side that I had never even listened to before, but really enjoyed - plus it was a debut for this tour.

All in all, it wasn't my dream set list, but it was a solid one. I would've loved to have seen Digital Ghost, Secret Spell, Beauty of Speed or Velvet Revolution from the new album or Northern Lad, Mother, Sugar, 1000 Oceans, Strange or Gold Dust, favorites from previous albums that I have NEVER seen live. Or even songs like Winter, Siren, Bachlorette, Raspberry Swirl, A Sorta Fairytale, Black Dove, Blood Roses, Cooling, Josephine, Taxi Ride or Tear in your Hand which I have seen live before but LOVE. Well --- there's always next time.

More Tori stats anyone? Like that I have seen her perform 97 different songs out of 311 that she has done live (130 of those are covers, most performed during her "Piano Bar" segment on the last tour)? Ok, ok, I will stop. :)