A bespectacled and green-clad played a sundry set just shy of two hours Sunday night at the .
The solo performance featured Amos pivoting back and forth between her giant black Bösendorfer piano and a synthesizer – and later, a Hammond organ – churning out songs spanning her 26-year career. She’s touring in support of her latest album, “Unrepentant Geraldines,” but she played only two songs from the new disc: “Invisible Boy” and “16 Shades of Blue.” Instead, she crafted her set seemingly on a whim, catering to fans with favorites (“Cornflake Girl,” “Crucify”), deep cuts (“On the Boundary” from 1988’s “Y Kant Tori Read”) and a few covers for good measure.
Amos opened with “Parasol” from “The Beekeeper,” and continued with a handful of songs before performing a rarity: “Putting the Damage On” from “Boys for Pele.”
“This song happens once in a blue moon,” she said.
The audience cheered in satisfaction as Amos began each song, almost as if they wanted to be the first to claim each as their own. She played in front of a backdrop of nine interconnected, rectangular screens that resembled bricks. The lights swirled and danced across them in colors of red, green and yellow, and at one point a sky of blue stars surrounded the screens. After a few more songs, the stage went dark for a moment and upon the top right screen appeared the words “Lizard Lounge” – apparently Tori Amos-speak for cover songs. She played versions of “Silver Springs” by Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin’s “Thank You.”
Then it was back to business with another set of originals including “Sugar” and “iieee.” The entire audience stood up from their seats as if on cue when her fingers caressed the opening notes to “Cornflake Girl,” a clear favorite from “Under the Pink,” the last song before her one-minute “encore.” The crowd remained standing for the remainder of the show, all the way through to closing song “Pretty Good Year.” From this point on, pre-recorded backing tracks accompanied her on the keys.
Amos then blew kisses to her loyal fans and touched hands with as many of them as could manage to squeeze up to the front of the stage.
The intimacy of the show was warm and inviting; however, it would have been interesting to experience the kind of diversity a backing band could have offered her songs.
SET LIST
Parasol
Doughnut Song
Graveyard
Crucify
Suede
Putting the Damage On
Ribbons Undone
Spark
Invisible Boy
Carbon
“Lizard Lounge”
Silver Springs (Fleetwood Mac)
Thank You (Led Zeppelin)
On the Boundary
Beauty of Speed
Sugar
Mountain
iieee
Cornflake Girl
Encore
Ode to the Banana King
16 Shades of Blue
Pirates
Pretty Good Year
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Steve Shultz is a community journalist at The Denver Post and a new contributor to Reverb.
Glenn Ross is a Denver-based photographer and regular contributor to Reverb. See more of his work .
