bio-philiac: I think it can be said without...

7th September 2011

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

I think it can be said without being hyperbolic that 2001’s “StrangeLittleTour” is Tori Amos’ best tour to date. Although it obviously was meant to support her covers album, Strange Little Girls, it also served as a sort of “best-of” retrospective of her Atlantic years, which, to many fans, is Tori’s golden era. And they’re right, to an extent. While I love everything she’s released over the past decade, her work in the 90s is the whole reason why she has a fan base today.

Tori believes that her songs are “alive” and are, therefore, versatile when it comes to live arrangements. As the tour was entirely solo, a format Tori hadn’t used since she introduced a band to her sound in 1998, many of her songs released between 1998-2001 received new arrangements. Perhaps the greatest of the rearrangements happened to “Cruel”, a single from 1998’s from the choirgirl hotel. In place of the swirling mass of drum loops and borderline industrial guitar squalls, both of which became much more prevalent in the 2007 reincarnation of the track and gave the song a sort of sinister feel, Tori quieted the song down by playing it on a Wurlitzer keyboard, which sounds like an organ. Amos also wove several lines of “Amazing Grace” into the song’s ending.

Miraculously, every single show on the tour was recorded and are available as bootlegs. Which is a good thing, since “Cruel” made only a few appearances on the European leg. The version available for streaming here is from Vienna, AT. Enjoy. <3

Side note: It was reported that Tori sound checked “Cruel” in Dublin, IE during 2010’s random solo tour across Europe. Perhaps we’ll be lucky to get a rearrangement of “Cruel” with the string quartet on the upcoming tour for her new album, Night Of Hunters.

Agree.

THIS. RIGHT HERE. She just doesn’t play like this any more. this version of Cruel is amazing.

Tagged: do you have an mp3 of this?stunning