Tori Amos Concert

Dave and I went to a Tori Amos concert with my brother and sister-in-law. We had a really rough weekend and I did not even want to go but it seemed like a good distraction. Dave had never really listened to any of her music and I have not in years. Little Earthquakes was my favorite CD for some time as a teen, and it was my favorite thing to listen to as I shredded Kleenex wet with tears and snot. I think I cried more in one year as a teenager than I have in the past ten. So needless to say, I am not really in That Place anymore emotionally. But I still think she has a really beautiful voice and I had heard her concerts were entertaining.
Little did I know that I would spend most of it laughing hysterically. I honestly thought I was going to pee myself. By the end of the night, my whole throat and head hurt from trying so hard to laugh silently. What was so funny?
Tori Amos kept doing this ridiculous dances. She would stand up before a song and turn her back to the audience in these wierd Spacesuit jumper outfits and start shaking her booty. Only thing, is that she could not shake her booty properly and the result was just sad. Then she would do this wierd bees are attacking me and I must karate chop them away dance. And every couple of seconds she would jerk her head towards the audience for exactly a second with this wierd grin on her face and then she would just throw her head back the other way. I can't really describe it. I am not sure if she was trying to be artsy or absurd or if she really was aiming for sexy and just falling miserably short. I felt sort of embarassed for her. She plays one grand piano and one keyboard at the same time, but she places them opposite each other so she is forced to straddle this stool and keep her legs spread wide open. It is just the most ridiculous and slutty piano playing ever. It is the only concert I have ever been to where I enjoyed the opening act more than the main performance, and where I was super irritated when the audience cheered for an encore. It was like, enough already! Oh, and then there was the ridiculous light show: there were these crazy strobing spotlights that were shone relentlessly in our eyes. I finally just had to shut my eyes because I could not see anything at all. I think they were meant to distract us from the terrible performance. The music was very good, but I think I would have prefered to just hear it and not see anything on the stage. Which is sort of like just staying home and listening to a CD.
Another thing that made us laugh so hard was the strange assortment of people in the audience. There were some ancient and feeble elderly there. I am thinking maybe they are season ticket holders that just show up everytime the doors open? I bet they did not know what they were getting into. I certainly did not.
Then there was the couple in front of us. This man had an absolute OBSESSION with his date's hair. For three hours he twisted it, pulled it, gathered it into buns, ran it through his hands like a rope, petted it.... Now we were in very close quarters so doing this meant he had to have his elbows slung over the back of his chair and pretty much in Dave's lap. His date just stared straight ahead at the stage. But he, he just focused, with his head completely turned and stared right at her face. Like so much that his face was practically blocking her view. Every five minutes or so he would suddenly jerk his head and look over his shoulder at the monitor, which was behind him and meant that he would have to throw his head back in Dave's lap. Not once, not one time, did his date recipricate and show him affection back. I mean, buddy, if you have to try THAT hard, maybe she's just not feeling it....
Would I go again? Absolutely not. But I think it provided some odd but much needed comic relief. It was sort of that inappropriate funeral laughter. It's not really funny at all, but this just makes you laugh more...