Tori Amos - Live in Montreux 1991/1992 Review
Posted by Jeff Modzelewski on 10.10.2008
A new release of some very early Tori Amos shows. Does Tori and a piano still sound great after all these years?
Tori Amos released a new live concert collection at the end of September, with very little promotion or fanfare that I could see. I didn’t even find out about this release until it was already out. However, being the Tori fan that I am, I knew I had to check it out right away.
“Live at Montreux 1991/1992” is actually two live releases in one. Tori played the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1991, before the release of “Little Earthquakes,” and in 1992, soon after the release of her debut album. Both sets are just her and her piano, with no backing band. These are the earliest live releases for Amos, and both sets are comprised mainly of songs from “Little Earthquakes,” with a couple covers and B-sides thrown in for good measure.
Unfortunately, instead of releasing the set as a double album in the US (as they did in Europe), they instead released the shows on a single disc, cut three songs off of the 1992 show, and made those available for “digital download.” In my opinion, this is a superbly stupid decision. It’s especially stupid because two of those songs are among Tori’s most popular songs, “Silent All These Years” and “Crucify.” My opinion is that Tori fans are going to buy this album regardless even if it’s a couple more bucks for a double disc instead of a truncated single disc. I downloaded the other songs so I have the complete concerts on my Ipod, but it was pretty stupid to cut them from the release.
The first show is a 10 song set. It includes solid versions of “Silent All These Years,” “Crucify,” and “Precious Things.” “China,” which has never been one of my favorite Tori songs, makes a very strong appearance, showing a passion that I just never saw on the studio version. There’s not much crowd banter, but Tori tells a funny little story before “Leather” and makes a joke about the short, a cappella song “Song for Eric.” She also has to re-start “Happy Phantom” because she forgot a line. The highlight of this set was “Winter,” one of my favorite Tori songs, and she does a great, slightly slower version than the studio version. The show closes with a cover of Led Zepplin’s “Thank You,” introduced as the song she used to make out to instead of “Stairway to Heaven.”
The six songs that are included from the second show include repeats of “Precious Things,” and “Winter.” She also does another Zepplin cover, this time combining “Whole Lotta Love” with “Thank You” instead of just doing one song straight up. The set opens with “Little Earthquakes” and closes with the a cappella (and very powerful) “Me and a Gun” and a cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Musically, this is a very strong collection. Tori’s voice is excellent, the piano is powerful, and she’s obviously enjoying herself. Both versions of “Winter” are great, and “Me and a Gun” is an emotional highpoint. I still don’t know how she performs that song live. Tori easily moves between fun to serious, melancholy to white-hot anger. She’s able to display a range of emotions from one song to another, and make each one sound authentic
While I’m glad that there’s finally a release of early Tori Amos shows, I’m disappointed in the choice of shows. Tori would generally do 15 or 16 song shows when she was touring on “Little Earthquakes.” To me, it would have made much more sense to release a single show than to lump together two shows that were done a year apart (and, if you include the “digital download” songs, included way too many repeats). Since the shows are only a year apart, the repeats don’t even showcase any real “musical growth” of the songs. And, personally, I do prefer “full band” Tori Amos to just her and a piano. This is a must-have for any serious Tori fan, but the casual fans will probably stick with her studio releases. Personally, if I want to hear some live Tori, I’ll probably put in the second disc of “To Venus And Back” instead of “Live at Montreux.”
The 411: Overall, “Live at Montreux 1991/1992” is a solid album, but not overly spectacular. Fans of Tori will appreciate having an official release of two early live performances, but they’ll also be disappointed by the repeats and the cutting of 3 of the songs. Great performance, but a questionable release.
Both of these concert sets have been released in full on an HD DVD. That there was video for these concerts is the reason they were released. I understand that the songs which didn't fit on the CD are available as downloads, but my computer OS can't upgrade to the newest version of Java, so I can't buy downloadable tracks anywhere anymore that I'm aware of. Ah, well.
If you watch and listen to the 1991 set, which took place about five weeks before she wrote "Me and a Gun," you will see Tori Amos perform a set that's as close as we will ever experience from the era when Atlantic-EastWest had her playing some club dates in London, so she could get some positive ink before Little Earthquakes would be released in its final form half a year later. This plan succeeded.
Some years back, I came to understand that all the Montreux Jazz Festival concerts starting from before this era had been recorded on film or video. I considered trying to get a personal-use copy of them, but after thinking about it for more than 45 seconds, one will realize that the cost of such a thing, even if working out the rights and other issues were possible, would have cost, at the very least, *many* hundreds of dollars, and I would have had a hard time not sharing such a thing if I had it and no one else did, and then I would be nailed for breach of copyright.
Get a copy of the DVD and let us know what you think. It's absolutely time travel of the most astonishing kind. To be able to buy these concerts--both of them, but mainly the first one, and FOR 15 DOLLARS!--to me, is truly a miracle.
Posted By: Richard Handal (Guest) on October 10, 2008 at 01:24 AM
DVD release is much better than the CD - that's what you should have reviewed
Posted By: the_fiXer (Guest) on October 10, 2008 at 01:24 PM
