I've been meaning to blog about this for quite some time. But I've been waiting to house it in something a bit more formal, hence the Lyrical Exegesis tag. So this past Sunday (December 16th), my brother, sister and I attended the final show of Tori Amos' American Doll Posse World Tour at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. In short, it was everything I wanted it to be and more. It was phenomenal, incredible, astounding, stellar... I could go on and on. ;) I can't imagine I could encapsulate the totality of my personal experience in this post, so I won't even try. But I thought it would be good enough to share a few highlights.
Now, before I speak much about anything I guess I should lay down some ground work for the uninitiated. This tour was meant to promote Tori Amos' most recent album, 2007's American Doll Posse. That work was, more or less, born out of a seed that was sown back in 2001 with the release of Tori Amos' cover album, Strange Little Girls. In that album, Tori covered songs written by men which were then reinterpreted by female personae of her own conjuring. She followed up that album in 2002 with Scarlet's Walk. That work was largely inspired by the events of 9/11 and was meant to question the path America was on. The Scarlet persona, the observer, was born from the work who in turn documented the rise and fall of several female personae chronicled within the album. In the time since, save for 2005's The Beekeeper, Amos has only released various reworks of older material. It was only until this year that Tori picked up the thread she laid down with Scarlet's Walk.
American Doll Posse, at it's core is a call to arms against America's political Christian patriarchy. It's really an amalgamation of all the work she's accumulated in the past seven years. Before Strange Little Girls there was never a full realization of a personae system within Tori's work. That's not to say the archetypes were never there, because they were, but the audience was never privy to anything, or anyone rather, fully conceptualized. With American Doll Posse, however, the archetypes are front and center.
The American Doll Posse refers to a collective of five women that Tori has given form and voice to. The Dolls are modeled after goddesses from the Greek pantheon. Together they are the integrated form of the artist's personality, or at least, part of.
Each show of this tour was structured the same. Every night one Doll from the Posse would be visited upon the audience and perform 4-6 songs in her own unique voice. After which Tori would leave the stage for a costume change and return to finish up the show as herself with the band. Midway through the set the band would leave Tori to perform solo with her piano and then return to close out the rest of the show, along with two encore performances. Which Doll would perform was dependent on the city, the people and the mood/spirit of the evening.
What was especially exciting about the last few shows of the tour was the appearance of two Dolls on stage. Luckily, I was able to see exactly who I wanted to see perform that night. Given the overall thrust of the album, which was largely political, I had no doubt that the final show would be graced with Isabel, Tori's model of the hunter goddess, Artemis. And I was right. Now, I'm not one to set myself up for disappointment, so I didn't really expect to see another Doll that night. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a silent wish deep down in my heart of hearts to see Pip. Pip is Tori's model of the goddess of war, wisdom and strategy, Athena. If ever I imagined Pip having a hometown, I always figured it would be Los Angeles, so I had some hope that she would appear. And she did! :D I was so overwhelmed that night. It was so pitch perfect in every way.
What I love about this work, and Tori's work as a whole is the varying levels of depth that the audience can choose to explore. At it's most superficial, the album is an exhaustive alternative-pop effort. But for me, as usual, it's so much more. I was struck most by the enormity of what being at the show meant. It was witnessing severals years worth of endeavoring come to term. It was also taking part in something largely ritualistic. I came to the show with that in mind. I'd come, head bowed and mind open expecting to experience something mythical. Again, it was everything I wanted and so much more. It was a marvel to witness, and I was awestruck the entire time. It's really something to see an artist pull off something of that scale. The work exists aurally, as music; prosaically and poetically, in blogs, interviews and in its lyrical context; symbolically, in the physical forms the artist adopted. It was a perfect multimedia experience.
And I was so happy about the way in which is was experienced, with Isabel and Pip. That pairing was perfect. In the context of the political push Tori was hoping to promote, there were no two people better suited to end the tour; the thinker and the activist. Ritualistically, to call on the Twin Hero archetype to create a beginning at what was ostensibly the end was genius. I witnessed the magician and the marauder; the shaman and the warrior. It was so many things. It was the animus exposed, two parts of the masculine-feminine...
As I said when I got started, I would never be able to fully relay my experience of the evening so I think I'll call it a rest for now. It's enough to know that I was happily overwhelmed by the show. It was so rich and immersive, mythologically and symbolically so. Allusion was the watchword of the night and I was enjoying every moment of it; being able to make connections throughout her 19-year career. :D
And I never even got around to the actuality of the experience. Tori was on fire, the best I'd ever seen her. Her piano work was spot on and her voice never sounded more solid and crystalline. The venue was phenomenal. The set list was fantastic... Again, I could go on and on about all that as well. :P I guess you just had to be there. ;)
DS333, in awe.
p.s. Super Huge Universal Thanks to my brother and sister who made everything possible. I am forever in debt to their kindness and generosity. :D
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