The Music That Made Us - Tori Amos in Concert

In review: Tori Amos at Place Des Arts, Montreal QC, October 21.

The music we discover as teenagers never leaves us. By the time I turned 13, I was shamelessly addicted to “No Need to Argue” by the Cranberries and “Jagged Little Pill” by Alanis. Parts of those albums still make my heart jump to this day - the violins on “Dreaming my Dreams,” or the empowering rage of “Right Through You…” The music that speaks to us in our early teens registers in simple raw emotions - anger, or beauty, or lust. They are gratifying explanations for feelings we don’t yet have the words to articulate.

Perhaps the most influential artist I discovered in my adolescence is Tori Amos - the red-headed diva who’s famous for her dark, cathartic piano riffs, and her eccentric, witchy voice. She is a goddess in the repertoire of contemporary singer-songwriters. I got to see her in concert on Sunday last at Place Des Arts, and she blew my mind.

It is such an incredible experience to see performed live the music that shook you as a kid. I first heard Tori when I was at camp the summer before I turned 14 - a mix tape was playing in the arts and crafts lodge, and suddenly I was struck by the sound of a mournful, deeply expressive piano. An icy voice began to crackle overtop of it, and I just froze and listened. I had never heard anything like it - I didn’t know music could sound like that. The song, I’m guessing, was “Icicle,” although I still don’t know for sure. Hearing it was like having every single throbbing emotion I’d been harbouring since puberty struck, expressed. A few months later I bought “Little Earthquakes,” and my outlet for all my angst was found. Armed with my yellow Panasonic walkman and my melancholy tunes, my high school survival strategy was in place.

I’d heard Tori in concert twice before this, but Sunday’s concert was by far my most wonderful experience. I think largely because I decided to go to the concert alone. I wanted to have some private communion time with this emotional music - I wanted to feel all the feelings that went along with it, and really be moved. I don’t keep up with her current stuff anymore, though I continue to respect her as an important contemporary artist. I was going purely for nostalgia.

I showed up to Salle Wilfred Pelletier on Sunday night after a long day of teaching, and just settled into my seat and listened. As is the real joy of seeing any kind of show alone, I got to indulge in all the weird impulses the music provoked. When she came on stage I felt my belly tremble, and when she started to play the old-school B-side “Sweet Dreams” I started to laugh with joy. I took in Tori’s newer material - songs I’m much less familiar with - with the respect I give any artist. But when the red-headed goddess delved into her classics (of which she played so many!) I just let myself get swept away by the beauty of it all. The band she’s touring with brought a whole new energy to these old songs, but they stirred the deep grit of the original recordings. The songs breathed all that old angst back into me, and then I breathed it all back out.

This is music that encouraged me to feel things more deeply, and music that inspired me to write my own pieces. These songs are my old friends. And if there’s any single celebrity that can make me feel like a star-crazed schoolgirl, it’s Tori. So biking home up Parc last Sunday night was a joy. I sang these old songs outloud into the moist Mount Royal air, and felt free.