We kicked off our Thanksgiving holiday by going to see Tori Amos (simply Tori to her adoring fans) in concert last night. Shannon is more of a Tori afficionado than I am and has been a fan a lot longer (the tickets were a birthday present from me to her), but I've become a fan in recent years and we were both excited to see the 44-year old pop diva in person. I made a last-second decision not to bring our camera and I'm kicking myself today, because we had a great vantage point. But if you're interested you can see some pics from the Palm Beach Post here.
An interesting sidenote...Tori's dad (a Methodist minister) and mom were seated just below us. It was fun seeing the line of fans coming up to them before the show to shake hands and get pictures taken, and they seemed to be loving the attention. They were probably the oldest people in attendance other than the ushers! I had to wonder what goes through their heads as they watch their famous daughter doing her thing. Tori herself has a home in Stuart (a few miles north of here) where she and her husband and daughter spend time in the summer, and she's always made it a point to play this area.
Despite having a minister for a father (or perhaps because of that), Tori has gotten a lot of mileage and notoriety out of her enthusiasm for poking a stick in the eye of organized religion, esp. Christianity. She can be clever, but like many who wear their anti-Christian feelings on their sleeve, she never engages with the Jesus of the gospels. For instance, last night she mentioned an encounter with the Phelps family in Lawrence, Kansas who go around picketing with signs saying things like "God hates fags", as if they are even remotely representative of what authentic Christianity looks like. Shannon remarked that she's as narrow-minded in her own way as the "Christians" she ridicules. Perhaps she needs to have a sit-down with Anne Rice, who after seriously investigating the claims of Christianity, recently returned to the faith.
All that aside, she played a fantastic set at the Kravis Center and I'm a bigger fan now having seen her live. I'm not surprised she was voted the fifth-best live act in a Rolling Stone poll a few years ago. I think of her as sort of the anti-Madonna. She can vamp it up with the best of them, but beneath all that is a tremendously talented and hard-working songwriter, musician and performer. Perhaps that was most apparent last night when Tori's band left the stage and it was just her at her famous Bosendorfer piano delivering lovely renditions of Amazing Grace and Gold Dust. Her songs speak to something within the souls of her (mostly female) fans, many of whom intensely relate to Tori's honest exploration of traumatic experiences in her past. Tori Amos's brand of introspection and persona-shifting will ultimately prove fruitless if left by itself, but it makes her still one of the most original voices on the American music scene.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Tori in West Palm Beach
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5 comments:
Hey Steve,
Thanks for stopping by my site the other day and interacting. I'm posting overly meagerly these days.
I read your post on Tori with interest. I can be helped by your thoughts here (if I will listen!) b/c I tend to virtually shut out interaction with pop music, esp. that which is even mild in expressing an ethos which is 'of this world', to borrow a common category within Christian perspective. From what you have said, Tori would appear to be beyond 'mild'.
I continue to wrestle with a rather entrenched (if not well-founded) belief that pop music is bad for our culture -- cause and symptom that mis-uses music as 24-7 entertainment which the populous only too readily misuses with techno-capabilities of our day. That said, I hope you can know I am just musing and interacting. Since we know each other only casually (prob. met at Hobe years ago -- I was there from '83-'93), and for other good reasons, I am not trying to start an argument or even find fault. Your post gave me food for thought and I always enjoy probing this question. I think it is a given that we can learn a great deal from the brilliance and creativity of so many in pop music. And the way they express human reality is poignant, to put it in cliched understatement.
Am I influenced by a heritage that may over-weight the separation part of the Christian life equation? Yes.
Again, just thinking along, and would be happy for your rejoinder, etc.
Blessings,
Randy
PS A friend sent me this link recently -- tying Allan Bloom's essay on music from "Closing..." into pop culture/music in general. If you know Blooms essay (a ch. in the book), you may enjoy this. If you do not know Bloom's essay, it is 10 pages or so worth reading.
http://newcriterion.com:81/archives/26/11/twenty-years-ago-today/
Randy,
Thanks for reading and for your thoughtful comments. Knowing that most people that happen to read my scrawlings are Christians, I hesitated whether I should even blog about the concert. I can imagine people saying (probably with good reason) why I would even attend or be a fan of such as Tori Amos...a definitely "beyond mild" artist as you said. I'm influence by a similar heritage as you and I readily admit to reacting against some of of the excesses of that heritage by swinging too far in the other direction. It's certainly something I wrestle with as a Christian...trying to resolve the tension between scripture's clear message of avoiding darkness, separation vs. being salt and light, being in the world but not of the world. And I realize that each person will come down differently on that spectrum.
I have Bloom's book. It's been years and years since I read it, but I will revisit that chapter. I suspect I'll agree with much of what he says. In fact I despite 95 percent of what passes for pop music and pop culture these days and in a weird irony an iconoclastic, "controversial" artist like Tori Amos does too (but for somewhat different reasons). I'm disturbed by the mind-numbing effects of most of what you see on TV, movies or hear on the radio.
I confess to having a soft spot for original voices (even ones that hold views and beliefs I strongly disagree with). You may have heard the statement "art tells the truth even when it lies". I see big problems with that statement from a Biblical perspective, however I would agree that "good art" (and I realize that what makes "good art" is very subjective) can contain truth even when it comes from someone with a manifestly false worldview.
Again, I quickly confess to perhaps being too open-minded in some areas and too close-minded in others. We all have our blind spots.
To sum up...I'm much more concerned about the destructive, spiritually-deadening effect on our culture of pop phenomenoms like Hannah Montana and reality TV shows (just to cite two) than I am of Tori Amos. I feel I could actually have a serious conversation with Tori about spiritual matters that I couldn't have with the average American who sits in front of the TV for 15-20 hours a week.
Again, thanks for writing and for giving me the opportunity to flesh out my thoughts a bit more on this fascinating topic.
Grace and peace!
I got to see her play at a taping of the David Letterman show in '93 or '94, but never a full concert. Would like to.
Because her venom is directed at man-made dogma and the sort of hate that in no way represents the Jesus I live for, her lyricism is not as hard for me to reconcile. Still disturbing and troubling at times, though, yes.
Beneath her anger is a real desire for genuine spiritual connection. She (and millions of others) need better examples of true Christians to observe. Unfortunately, it's the noxious mouthpieces who paint such a poor picture of faith who are the most noticeable. If Tori rails against the 'God hates fags' types and some of the poisonous politocos, then give me a mike, too. I'm right there with her.
Also, her song "God", as an example, may not even be about a deity. Her words are tantalizingly enigmatic sometimes.
Bill,
Thanks for commenting. I'm with you. As I've told you before, you should be blogging! The blogosphere needs more TRULY TALENTED writers like you weighing in.
Hey Steve,
Just a quick word back your way. Enjoyed perusing Piper's thoughts on Spong and Hitchins, BTW.
I appreciate you angle on all of this. I have long been fascinated with the secular mind and how to intersect it, and that means that pop culture when best expressed holds alot of interest for me. I can readily see what you are saying, e.g., about sitting down for a discussion with Tori. And while I might find steam for further discussion if I tried, I'm not going to try. Your comments are helpful and thoughtful and candid.
I especially loved "art tells the truth even when it lies". This says so well what I was trying to understand about the value we can find in what the pop culture's best 'expressers' are doing. And I think I can see pretty well what you mean about 'original voices'. I only know about Tori from your post and from the pics at the link, but it looks like she tries to be real, and has some down-to-earth but still uncommon talent -- whatever that exactly means. I am thinking about those people who can, for instance, sit down at the piano and give you something to think about while accompanying it with the real deal, the kind of thing that comes from inside and is just there -- an undefinable, very intrinsic ability which gives them a voice that very few can copy, and the copy would be no good anyway. Thats the kind of thing I sensed as you wrote and I put it with the pictures of her at the grand. Such a nice contrast to the packaging in electronics that too easily masks music and true human expressiveness and connection.
Well, I've mused long enough. Thanks again for the interaction.
Randy
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