The piano bar’s loss was Wolf Trap’s acquire as Amos emerged stuffed with lighthearted vitality not even a damaged foot might suppress. Accompanied by her longtime bassist, Jon Evans, and newer percussionist, Ash Soan, Amos delivered almost two hours of songs on her Bösendorfer piano and digital keyboard, typically enjoying each on the identical time.

This was Amos’ first efficiency at Wolf Trap since 1996. That 12 months, Amos promoted “Boys for Pele” and toured with a piano, harpsichord, harmonium and guitarist. At that present, she shared recollections of boys inviting her to Wolf Trap reveals, then backing out. Some different folks took pity on her (as Amos tells it) and invited her to sit down on the garden with them.

Amos has a status for being darkish and intense, two phrases that might by no means describe her interactions along with her followers or band. As Evans performed an extended intro for “Wednesday,” Amos watched with a smile as if this was a playdate and never a live performance in a theater that holds 7,000. (Wolf Trap offered an onstage signal language interpreter who signed the lyrics as Amos sang them, an unusual 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 whereas she carried out, typically at homosexual bars round D.C. Though he didn’t approve of all the pieces he noticed, her father maintained he wasn’t doing his responsibility if he didn’t help her.

Along the way in which, she launched her first single, “Baltimore,” at age 16 in 1979 (as Ellen Amos). It received a contest to report a brand new theme track for the Baltimore Orioles. Baltimore’s mayor additionally gave Amos a quotation. In an interview with the Washington Post, she stated she was going to be a legend.

She continued enjoying into younger maturity, realizing she was getting a crash course in political energy whereas in D.C. Lobbyists and candidates got here into the lounges the place Amos performed, and the waitstaff instructed her concerning the offers made there. Amos, nonetheless difficult the authority of the church, was surprised by the depths of manipulation and corruption she witnessed. As she carried out a number of blocks from the White House on the evening Reagan defeated Carter, her songwriting took on new urgency.

The unflinching songs which have outlined her wouldn’t be launched till 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 gross sales and critiques for that band not been so dismal, maybe Amos wouldn’t have merged her piano expertise along with her outspoken beliefs which have come to outline her music.

While it’s true that performing Debby Boone most likely didn’t do a lot for Amos’ chops, her time enjoying in D.C. proved invaluable. Her proximity to secrets and techniques and highly effective males finally impressed songs reminiscent of “The Wrong Band” and the rarity “Bug a Martini.” She didn’t select these songs on the Wolf Trap efficiency, however she delivered the wistful “Virginia,” which explores the suppression of indigenous tradition. For one track, Evans and Soan left the stage, and Amos carried out a transferring solo rendition of “Gold Dust,” a track from 2002’s “Scarlet’s Walk.” Inspired by the delivery of her daughter, the lyrics referenced D.C’s “cherry-blossom canopies” as the gang grew teary.

As sturdy as her ties are to Baltimore and D.C., Amos additionally has recollections of an undisclosed city on the New River the place her dad and mom owned a farm. When town confirmed Amos a few of humanity’s worst faults, she retreated to the farm to choose blackberries, watch the moon, and see cows give delivery. It was there that she composed her track “Girl.”

Her songs are stuffed with reverence for the land, however 2021’s “Ocean to Ocean” extends that grace to water. Amos carried out solely two songs from that album — her most up-to-date — together with the title monitor, which featured an extended piano intro earlier than the track’s hypnotic melody started.

Some early songs had been bit gradual for a crowd woozy from the warmth. That all modified when she banged out the opening riff to “Cornflake Girl” and everybody sprang as much as dance. She saved the vitality excessive through the encore, through which she sang a portion of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” meshed along with her personal “Bliss.”

It appeared Amos and the gang might go all evening, however she performed just one extra track, “The Waitress,” one other fan favourite. Only at a Tori Amos present can a piano-driven rock anthem about feminine rage guarantee attendees depart with smiles on their faces.

Erin Lyndal Martin is a artistic author, arts journalist and visible artist. Learn extra at erinlyndalmartin.com.