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Two words: Tori. Amos.

In concert. In Munich. Circus Krone. And other wonderful pairs of words. And I was there. I’ve waited for this moment for years. I was grinning from ear to ear, just ask Mike.

I still am.

Like I said, I’ve been waiting for this for ages, so you can imagine how antsy I was the entire day. And yeah, I just gave up trying to study today and went to Stusta and promptly, in the shortest order, persuaded Blue to follow. Well, convinced him with the passion of my words rather (or words of my passion, rather!) and thus, we headed to Marienplatz to see if we could get a ticket for him. (I bought mine eons ago.)

Tough luck. Sold out. We then decided to straight to the circus and see if we could buy a ticket from scalpers. Blue was immensely confident there will be scalpers. I said I didn’t know, this wasn’t Chicago, it was squeaky clean Munich. Still …

Snow got a tad harder, but nothing we couldn’t handle. Got to the circus at last. The ticket counter was closed. Luckily, we met a nice lady who had an extra ticket and she sold it to us for cheaper too. Excellent. Now we were in!

Once inside, I rushed to the goodies section and bought her Strange Little Tourbook and a black SLG beanie. You know, the thing about guys and their goods – we material possesions must have, grrr … Then we headed into the hall, er, circus ring. It wasn’t a cloth tent, but concrete, and I was prepared for some interesting sonics that night. Blue and I had to sit separate cos of them ticks but, oh well.

Ben Christophers opened. His voice was even more incredible than it sounded on the album and it was already pretty damn good there. (I only have his first, My Beautiful Demon, one of my favourite debuts along with Rufus Wainwright, who, coincidentally, opened for Tori recently in the U.S.)

However, I think he used to much of the mixer, which threatened to drown his flasetto but never quite succeeds, thankfully. Banter was limited to quips on the weather. (It was snowing heavily and he mentioned one never gets that in England these days.) He seemed a little awkward in front of the audience, perhaps a tad bit shy. Only his second album after all.

Tori didn’t have that problem.

Not just the assured, experienced performer, she is always the animal on stage, with her black Bösendorfer panther beside her. After opening with a guttural ’97 Bonnie & Clyde behind the curtains (even the initial applause and hooting were silence by the defiance of Bonnie’s Mom), Amos the Red came on stage like a Valkyrie with Little Amsterdam and Lust.

She chatted a bit after that, saying it was her first time playing in a circus. She mentioned how she loved her husband but she can’t stop thinking of Juma, which turned out to be a giraffe who kissed her on the cheek. She grinned and wondered aloud about running off with Juma were she a giraffe. Heh.

I think it’d be a good idea to put down her setlist now and just draw from it as I go along. So, here goes:

.

• ’97 Bonnie & Clyde
• Little Amsterdam
• Lust
• Leather
• In The Springtime of His Voodoo
• Purple People
• Beauty Queen / Horses
• Winter
• Sweet Dreams
• Past The Mission
• Honey
• Cruel
• Me & a Gun
• Pretty Good Year

1st Encore:

• Mr. Zebra
• Merman
• Tear In Your Hand

2nd Encore:

• Cool On Your Island
• Space Dog
• Rattlesnakes

.

Purple People was one of my favourites and she made it beautiful and sorrowful tonight.

She played Cruel on the wurly, giving it a new mellow twist. The wurly was at Woodstock, she said, the real Woodstock, and after fumbling around, she came up with its age, 38 years old (which is her age as well, funny her). It was still in its first colours (that of the American flag) … “I know this is in fashion nowadays, but it’s the orginal painting ….”

Like at some concerts in the US, she closed with Pretty Good Year, changing some lines to “pretty shitty year”, reflecting on the damage to her America. During the first encore, in the middle of Merman, I think, she stopped and gently told a security guy, who was harrassing some fans in the front, that she was sure he was the nicest security guy in the world, but the fans wouldn’t bite her. She then turned to the fans and told them she will give the guy a kiss later and have a glass of champagne with him.

And then she continued with the song. What a class act.

I just have to mention one last thing: Cool On Your Island. Never heard it before (it was on her infamous Y Kant Tori Read rock-slut band album that’s harder to find than honesty these days) but I was blown away by these lines:

When will you wake up
I want you
more than the Stars
and the Sun
But I can take
only so much.

Sniff.

Tori Amos. Finally. Now only a reading by Neil Gaiman’s left and I can die happy.