Tori Amos
The Original Bootlegs

I'll start right away by giving you some wonderful news; with this review, I consider the Discography of the Redhead present on DeBaser complete (something might still be missing, but I'll explain more later) so until 2008, the probable year of her New Releases, you've rid yourself of this burden...

So, in 2005 Tori Amos released her least inspired Studio Album, namely that "The Beekeeper" verbose NeoPop concoction that only a die-hard fan could appreciate, followed by the"The Original Sinsuality Tour" in the Spring of the same year and the subsequent Summer the "Summer of Sin".

From the first, six performances were recorded in their entirety, four in the States and two in England, and then published in 2006, first separately and then in a box set with the title "The Original Bootlegs" indeed, so I will talk to you about this Live Collection...

But first, I need to step back to better explain the Sense of the Opera:

Until the Tour following "Boys for Pele" ('96), the Redhead never performed with a Band, preferring to perform solo with her piano, and the first time (excluding television appearances) this happened was in the "Plugged Tour" of '98, from then on, the Cornflake Girl alternated the two ways of performing live... in 2005, the schedule saw her all alone with her company of "Keyboarded Instruments"...

The performance during this Show essentially featured five parts: the first mostly based on songs from "The Beekeeper", a second dedicated to two Covers (one chosen by fans during pre-concert meetings held in the afternoon) and subsequently an Encore and a second Encore with a massive presence of Classics.

Obviously, in the six discs, this "structure" is widely reflected, maybe with small cuts due to time issues, but the description above is faithful to what you find in the recordings, with the clarification that in Amos's best tradition, each disc is very different from the other, as a setlist, therefore, the box set as a whole gives an excellent view of her career up to 2005, re-proposed as said in a live key, only Piano (or similar, she also brought an electric keyboard and a little organ on stage) and voice for the most part Unplugged.

Moving on to general considerations, the discourse is always the same: it is obvious (considering also if one is predisposed towards the genre) that minimal performances like these can also "offend" and not be appreciated, so it is fairly clear that such an operation is mostly aimed at historical fans (or in any case, at those who, approaching the Redhead, end up being totally captivated by her) and it is certainly not the best way to approach her from the perspective of a Newcomer, to whom I still always recommend and until death to listen (in chronological order) to the Albums of the '90s, including "To Venus and Back" of '99 where the second disc "Live, Still Orbiting" offers a nice performance this time with a full band.

The proposed Covers deserve a small separate discussion because it is fun to observe the various transitions that Tori makes from genre to genre (influenced also in 50 percent of cases by her fans' choices... obviously). Nevertheless, I leave the evaluations to individual sensibilities, providing a small List of the most curious ones, leaving some surprise about the others:

I Ran (A Flock of Seagulls)
Don’t Look Back In Anger (Oasis)
My Favorite Things (Rodgers & Hammerstein / Sound of Music)
Total Eclipse of the Heart (Bonnie Tyler)
Like a Prayer (Madonna)
Livin’ On A Prayer (Bon Jovi)

Hoping that the many Links proposed (I put them because being a sort of DeBaser's summation on Tori it seemed nice to provide some material) open (otherwise I'll put them in comments) I close by saying that in this last year I have proposed reviews on the less known material of the Redhead because the Classics were already all reviewed and I have included, besides Lives and Collections, also two Singles which in her Official Discography are listed as EPs, truth be told there would be another "Professional Widow which is a Rmx by Van Helden but since there is more work by good Armand than by Tori, on this little disc, I might review it (much) later crediting it to the former.

Then also missing is "Y Kan't Tori Read, the Album of the Redhead's first Group, but since it has been disowned by her, I obey my Goddess and leave it for someone else to possibly do.

I'm done (only with Tori, eh...)

Mo.