Tori Amos receives warm welcome at Wolf Trap homecoming

BY ERIN LYNDAL MARTIN Special to The News-Post

When Tori Amos took the stage at Wolf Trap on July 5, the crowd had reason to be excited. Not only was Amos touring in support of her 2021 album “Ocean to Ocean,” but she was returning to her old stomping grounds of the Baltimore/D.C. region.

Early into the concert, she told a story about an ill-fated gig in a D.C. piano bar where the manager hadn’t notified her she’d been replaced. When she showed up and was sent home, a bystander told her the venue would regret it one day.

The piano bar’s loss was Wolf Trap’s gain as Amos emerged full of lighthearted energy not even a broken foot could suppress. Accompanied by her longtime bassist, Jon Evans, and newer percussionist, Ash Soan, Amos delivered nearly two hours of songs on her Bösendorfer piano and electronic keyboard, often playing both at the same time.

This was Amos’ first performance at Wolf Trap since 1996. That year, Amos promoted “Boys for Pele” and toured with a piano, harpsichord, harmonium and guitarist. At that show, she shared memories of boys inviting her to Wolf Trap shows, then backing out. Some other people took pity on her (as Amos tells it) and invited her to sit on the lawn with them.

Amos has a reputation for being dark and intense, two words that could never describe her interactions with her fans or band. As Evans played a long intro for “Wednesday,” Amos watched with a grin as if this was a playdate and not a concert in a theater that holds 7,000. (Wolf Trap provided an onstage sign language interpreter who signed the lyrics as Amos sang them, an uncommon courtesy.)

Amos’ backstory is legend. At 5, she was a piano prodigy admitted to Baltimore’s Peabody Institute. When they wouldn’t renew her scholarship at age 11, her minister father chaperoned her while she performed, often at gay bars around D.C. Though he didn’t approve of everything he saw, her father maintained he wasn’t doing his duty if he didn’t support her.

Along the way, she released her first single, “Baltimore,” at age 16 in 1979 (as Ellen Amos). It won a contest to record a new theme song for the Baltimore Orioles. Baltimore’s mayor also gave

Amos a citation. In an interview with the Washington Post, she said she was going to be a legend.

She continued playing into young adulthood, realizing she was getting a crash course in political power while in D.C. Lobbyists and candidates came into the lounges where Amos played, and the waitstaff told her about the deals made there. Amos, still challenging the authority of the church, was stunned by the depths of manipulation and corruption she witnessed. As she performed a few blocks from the White House on the night Reagan defeated Carter, her songwriting took on new urgency.

The unflinching songs that have defined her wouldn’t be released until 1991 on Amos’ debut, “Little Earthquakes.” In the years prior, Amos had moved to Los Angeles and fronted an ’80s pop band named Y Kant Tori Read. Had the album sales and reviews for that band not been so dismal, perhaps Amos would not have merged her piano skills with her outspoken beliefs that have come to define her music.

While it’s true that performing Debby Boone probably didn’t do much for Amos’ chops, her time playing in D.C. proved invaluable. Her proximity to secrets and powerful men eventually inspired songs such as “The Wrong Band” and the rarity “Bug a Martini.” She didn’t choose those songs at the Wolf Trap performance, but she delivered the wistful “Virginia,” which explores the suppression of indigenous culture. For one song, Evans and Soan left the stage, and Amos performed a moving solo rendition of “Gold Dust,” a song from 2002’s “Scarlet’s Walk.” Inspired by the birth of her daughter, the lyrics referenced D.C’s “cherry-blossom canopies” as the crowd grew teary.

As strong as her ties are to Baltimore and D.C., Amos also has memories of an undisclosed town on the New River where her parents owned a farm. When the city showed Amos some of humanity’s worst faults, she retreated to the farm to pick blackberries, watch the moon, and see cows give birth. It was there that she composed her song “Girl.”

Her songs are full of reverence for the land, but 2021’s “Ocean to Ocean” extends that grace to water. Amos performed only two songs from that album — her most recent — including the title track, which featured a long piano intro before the song’s hypnotic melody began.

Some early songs were bit slow for a crowd woozy from the heat. That all changed when she banged out the opening riff to “Cornflake Girl” and everyone sprang up to dance. She kept the energy high during the encore, in which she sang a portion of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” meshed with her own “Bliss.”

It seemed Amos and the crowd could go all night, but she played only one more song, “The Waitress,” another fan favorite. Only at a Tori Amos show can a piano-driven rock anthem about female rage ensure attendees leave with smiles on their faces.

Erin Lyndal Martin is a creative writer, arts journalist and visual artist. Learn more at erinlyndalmartin.com.