Tori Amos: Welcome to Sunny Florida (2004)

Tori Amos's first concert-length live DVD, Welcome to Sunny Florida, is a riveting showcase for the artist's formidable vocal and instrumental chops and preciously off-kilter pop music. Taped on a wet day in September 2003 at West Palm Beach (the final stop on Amos's Lottapianos tour), the show was well performed, stunningly recorded, and lusciously lensed, if too frantically cut. Session ace Matt Chamberlain on drums and the nimble-fingered Jon Evans on bass provide just enough firepower to flesh out Amos's moody micro-epics while leaving sufficient space to keep her voice and keyboards the focus of our attention. Most songs feature brilliantly reworked arrangements, and the band uses the venue's acoustics to heighten the music's magic. Amos, a vital 40, enjoys a reputation as a great live act, and it's easy to see why as she loses herself in song, head thrown back, one hand on the keys of her Bösendorfer grand and the other on an accompanying Wurlitzer.

Be warned: "Professional Widow" suffers from repeated vocal muting on potentially offensive words, which happens to wreck the effect of this particular song. ("Precious Things" is, thankfully, intact.) The DVD comes with a 6-track CD, Scarlet's Hidden Treasures (a reference to Amos' 2002 Scarlet's Walk album), which includes in its 33 minutes a studio version of "Tombigbee," the first encore from the Florida show. --Michael Mikesell Amazon.com

A Superb Concert Video

I am too much of a Christian to be completely comfortable with Tori Amos either lyrically or how she comes across in concert. I am too much of an artist not to be a Tori Amos fan.

This concert video added to it. One reviewer complained that it was the final concert of the Scarlet's Walk Tour. So would you have preferred a different concert from that tour or a different tour? I saw a list of bootleg tapes (or videos) from her Beekeeper tour, and realized that the song list varies for her from concert to concert. (Nothing irritates me more than going to two concerts by the same artist on the same tour and knowing in advance what the song order is, or to realize that if I didn't hear my favorite song from album X when the artist is promoting album X, I won't ever hear that song live.)

I enjoyed that she played around with the songs, not just trying to recapture the sound of the original album. Different artists have different philosophies of this (Hall and Oates share Ms. Amos' approach; Styx wants to make be as close to the original as possible; Phil Keaggy realizes which leads are ones people expect to be performed, but has variation otherwise). I especially enjoyed the prolonged start of "Crucify".

This DVD includes a live interview with both Tori and her mother. There are segments of the interview shown in the concert video, which I liked -- it helped keep the video interesting.

Also included is the CD of "Scarlet's Hidden Treasures." Is it good? It's Tori -- what do you expect?! March 29, 2008

Welcome to

whatever the hell she was thinking. Which is honestly saying a lot, because I'm very willing to stretch for Tori. All the same, this one is not bringing me to the table. I must say I value her allowing her spiritual life to be more known, but the musical aspects of this set were... lacking. August 1, 2007

Finally a live DVD from Tori!

I think I was so excited about having a live DVD that I didn't realize at first what a shame it is this DVD only includes footage from the last show of the 2002 Scarlet's Walk tour...it would have been nice to have cuts from older shows (even just as extras on the DVD) considering Tori's been touring for nearly 20 years now, or even cuts from other shows on that same tour.

All whining aside, this DVD is actually really nice...the interviews with Tori as well as her parents, then the footage of her with her daughter are great. The show itself is really good too, a couple of highlights for me being "Father Lucipher", "Concertina" and the improvs for which she is so well known.

My only really big annoyance with this DVD is Tori's choice to censor so it wouldn't be slapped with a "parental advisory" sticker...somehow "Professional Widow" just doesn't have the same vibe when it ends with "Give me peace, love, and a hard BLANK"... January 5, 2007

Speechless

I have to say, this is probably the single best live DVD/Video I have seen by any group or artist. She puts on an awesome show and gets a very full sound for a three piece band (at least on the night this was filmed). The pre-show interviews with the fans, the tidbits of interviews during the show and after are all awesome. The Bonus CD is also a nice touch. This is definitely Tori at her best. October 28, 2006

"But this is cooling faster than i can..."

Welcome to sunny florida is so brilliant. this is my favorite concert coming in second to Madonna's drowned world tour DVD concert. Her renditions of Cooling, Bells for Her, Sugar, Amber Waves, and Hey Jupiter are so beautiful and intimate. Her voice is awesome live, i was surprised by how she stretches her voice, just wonderful. in the DVD, there are interviews with her mother and father, and of course tori herself. The songs that didn't make Scarlet's Walk are included in the DVD as well. Song titles:Ruby through the looking glass, Seaside, Bug a Martini, Apollo's Frock, Tombigbee, and the gorgeous Indian Summer. The concert is fabulous, the six bonus songs are breathtaking. Tori is a goddess of word and piano. April 14, 2006

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