I was moved to express a few thoughts on last night’s Providence show. This isn’t exactly a review, but anyhow…
Veterans Memorial Auditorium, Providence, Rhode Island, 11/30/99
“The whole air seemed alive as if the tongues of those great cold, hard metal things had become flesh and joy. They burst into being screaming with delight and the city vibrated. Some wordless thing they said touched something so deep inside you that they made tears come.”
—Emily Carr (Canadian painter, 1871 – 1945)
I’ve learned that there’s no way to know in advance from one show format to the next how Tori’s going to drive when she comes out of the garage. On the ’96 Dew Drop Inn tour she had a sports car, and proceeded to lead us at great speed through mountainous hairpin turns–pushing her limits and ours, seemingly daring herself to see how hard and how fast she could lead us without drifting over the edge of a cliff.
Those shows were often quite scary, and they came to seem sometimes like some sort of ritual testing ground of naked human emotion: How much feeling could she get in touch with, dig out and project toward to us? How much could she take, and how much could *we* take? She seemed to be keeping few secrets hidden, and on any given night anything and everything was fair game. I loved those shows with an abiding passion. Some of the deepest emotions I ever experienced in my whole life came around on that tour, and I never forget to this day how important all of that was and is to me.
The band shows last year and this seemed as if countryside jaunts in the family SUV. She used a more powerful one for the arena shows than she did for the smaller venues, but all were larger-than-life experiences, developed in no small part to impress with their pure might. Surely, she went off-road and utilized four-wheel drive over rugged terrain at points during these shows. Unlike some people, I loved the band shows a great deal, and to see how well she was ultimately able to pull off her vision of them gave me feelings of pride in her abilities as a talented and varied performer. And I liked having a few solo piano songs within the paradigm of a band concert. The shift at those shows between the types of instrumentation was pulled off in a way that seemed both casual and appropriate, and we got to experience the best of each world. For all their sheer force of energy, the band shows were approachable, engaging, welcoming, and often even joyous. I loved the hell out of the band shows.
It was with a huge amount of trepidation that I attended the solo piano show last night in Providence. I didn’t think my nervous system these days could take a harrowing concert of the type the DDI tour came to exemplify. Frankly, I didn’t enjoy watching her having to bear the bulk of the musical burden on her shoulders then, and even just for her to have endured the wear and tear on her body as she did in ’96 took a visible toll on her as well. I mean to refer to more than just a physical toll, but an emotional and spiritual one as well. I don’t know what all she was going through out there on the road in ’96, but we saw enough of its effects on her as a person that I came to be quite concerned for her by tour’s end. And although I attended nearly three dozen DDI shows, merely by reading accounts of those shows and talking with people who were there, one could readily tell that bubbling beneath the surface, there was a lot going on with her that year. I was relieved when it finally came to an emotional and life-changing conclusion.
I was therefore extremely relieved when I attended last night’s solo piano outing in Providence. Yes, she had her lithe sports car, but instead of taking us out at a breakneck pace, she seemed a calmer, less furtive and more seasoned pilot than I had ever seen at a solo show. I am perfectly content not to have to follow her at top speed along dangerous curves. Being led with introspection down dark and winding country roads suits me fine. It’s more than enough for me to be able to accompany her on these journeys, no matter what their nature. It’s great to simply be with her, and there surely was plenty of her in this Providence concert.
Tori has shown that she can pull off a variety of show formats. She has nothing to prove anymore. Now seems to me to be an upcoming time off the road to regroup musically, and simply to live. I think that holds true for many of us, including those of us who go to the shows.
I believe she needn’t worry who’s going to be around the next time she emerges from her garage to take a spin. I’m confident that many of us will be there with our thumbs out hoping to catch a ride, waiting to see where she has decided to take us next. I continue to have an immense amount of faith in her musical sensibilities, and where they steer her on her personal musical journey. And I love her very much.
Richard Handal’s blog 