Tori Amos


Riverport Amphitheatre, St. Louis, MO August 26, 1998.

Hi! Egads I can't believe what happened today. I'm really super dead tired and it's 2 something a.m. but I wanted to type out the basics of what went down so I don't forget anything!

Ok, Kim and I took off work this afternoon to go by Riverport early to try and meet Tori. We weren't sure how to do it but we were gonna try. We got there at 5pm cuz they said that's when the parking lot opened. There were already like 12-15 ppl milling about outside the gates. Some lady asked us if we were Point (radio station) Contest winners. We were like uhh no... But we watched and listened and asked around and found out the Point and the River (radio stations) had had promotions and contests to meet Tori. Anyway we had to somehow get in on it.

So Kim asked one of the guys in the River t-shirts about it. It was Jason Miller from the morning show or something. He was surprisingly cool and nice. Kim was being all cute and asked if we could somehow get in on this Tori meeting thing. He said he didn't really have any say in it but he directed us to the lady who did.

This lady named Mary was from Tori's record label. Kim asked her nicely if we could somehow meet Tori too. She must have thot we seemed somehow worthy cuz she was like, "well yah just stick by me and i'll see what we can do."

We milled about more by the contest winners trying to blend in with them. heh. Finally Mary motioned us over to her and whispered, "ok now just pretend you won the contest...you called in to the radio station and won this....ok?" and we were like "um, of course! yay we love you!"

There were about 12 of us total. We were all taken into Riverport thru a side gate. We had to wait at picnic tables for a bit. They lectured us about conduct and told us not to be unruly. Tori was doing her soundcheck. They took us into where the seats are. There was no one in any of the seats. We all sat in the front row and Tori began to play another song for soundcheck. It was Honey, one of our most favourite b-sides. We all sat silently in awe as she played and sang just for us. (ok and for her soundcheck). The next song was Sweet Dreams, one of the b-sides on the Winter ep. We couldn't believe it because we had never heard that song played live before. Even on live recordings or anything. Again we all listened in silence as we tried to take everything in. Tori talked to us a little and kept telling her musicians and sound ppl what to do. eee it was so neat.

Then they led us out of there and into the backstage area. One of the main parts of the backstage area has big framed pics of all these musicians hanging up everywhere. Another part we passed thru had like a little food court thingy. Anyway they took us to a tiny room with some couches. We sat and stood around the room. They told us what would happen. Tori would come and we would get our pics taken with her and she would sign one thing besides the picture.(!) We couldn't believe any of this was happening.
While we waited I got out my own camera which I had been hiding. It didn't take long before Tori came in the room followed by her tour manager guy or whatever ( that guy who looks like Gary Busey). She said hi to all of us and we went up two at a time and another girl took a polaroid pic. When it was me and Kim's turn they took the pic of us with the polaroid camera and then I had them take another with my camera. Tori signed the pic to both of us and signed our ticket stubs. We had come ill prepared. We hadn't brought anything for her to sign. I think this is mainly cuz I really, really seriously doubted we'd get to meet her. Anyway we chatted a tiny bit tho nothing majour. I can never think of what to say at times like that. We basically introduced ourselves and shook hands. I mentioned that I had met her in London. She was like "oh! really? did you enjoy the show..?" and I was like, "of course, it was wonderful." (duh) I mentioned something about how it kinda sucked that the security guys had made the girls who started dancing to Raspberry Swirl go sit back down. She said something like "yeah the different security ppl have different rules..." or something. We thanked her profusely and found our way back outside. eeeee. We were so freaking out.



Ok now as I am writing this lovely html for you...it is 3am....I do have workie and skool tomorrow so I am gonna have to finish this up later. mebbe at skool tomorrow, as I have a big break between classes and will be at skool veritably all day. More latah! -Lisa


Sept. 5, 1998. Ok sorry it's taken so long for me to get the rest of this up here. I've been busy with school and all the evils of homework. Anyway! Finally the gates opened at 6:30pm and we went inside. We wandered around running into various ppl that we knew and telling them of the wonders that had just occurred. We went and found our 4th row seats. There was a security guy sitting at the end of our row. Kim started chatting with him. He informed us he was there to keep people from rushing the stage. We kind of laughed at this because we were not used to seeing Tori fans actually rush the stage. Hmm. Anyway then he let us in on a little secret. "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but, actually the people in the first 4 rows are allowed to go up to the stage if they want." We were like, um.. ok... :)

Finally the opening band, the Devlins came on. They are from Ireland and the singer is such the snack. We have unofficially dubbed them "The dreamy, dreamy Delvins". See foto:


The Devlins' new cd, "Waiting" is quite nice. Now after hearing them play live 3 times in large venues I was expecting more of that beautiful moody resonance to somehow be on the cd, but it's not. I mean it's still good but it doesn't compare to the whole feeling I got from their live sound. One of the songs, Colin Devlin the snacky singer announced to us, was called "Where Are You Tonight?" Kim and I were only too quick to answer back with "We're RIGHT HERE...!" Ah well.. I digress. BACK to TORI! After the long break she finally took the stage. In a sudden bit of craziness the first few rows ran up to the stage. Much to our amazement, Kim and I were able to remain pressed up against the front barrier by the stage for the whole show.

Kim and I have tried to compile a list of the songs she sang. Some may be missing but this is what we remember: Cornflake Girl (with some crazynew funkay intro part), God, Doughnut Song, Caught a Lite Sneeze, the new 'rockin good' Precious Things, Jackie's Strength (during the line "virgins always get backstage no matter what they've got to say.." Kim and I exchanged wry smirks), iieee, Spark, Graveyard (elation!), The Waitress (we didn't care for the new version of this), She's Your Cocaine, Liquid Diamonds, Little Earthquakes (live versions are always so much better than the album version of this!), Siren (um, YAY.), Silent All These Years, Leather (!) and Pandora's Aquarium (a favourite for Kim).

It should be noted that Tori did NOT play Playboy Mommy at any of the three shows I have seen.  Does anyone know why?

Random notes: Before one of the encores Tori started dancing around with a Kenny from South Park stuffed doll. There were assorted South Park dolls and Rainbow Brite Sprites all over the stage. Unfortunately she hardly talked to the audience at all. We were hoping for more little stories. Another thing to note was that Caton kept like winking at Kim from the stage the whole time and giving her these little looks. I think Kim has a new boyfriend... All in all an excessively good time was had by all. ;)

Feel free to mail me at with questions or comments.


a Dent in the Tori Amos net universe[excellent info source]

tori cds