I'm glad you're on my side still.

Unsurprisingly, this post is going to be a double concert review post. Warning: I have a lot of Tori Amos picture that I am posting because they make me oh-so-happy.

On Wednesday night, I saw Bon Iver at Massey Hall with Jason. WOW. This concert was absolutely amazing. He had a band of about ten musicians on stage with him, including two drummers/percussionists. You know that while you are waiting for a show and you see two drum kits set up on stage, you're in for a treat.

The full band arrangements of all the songs performed were amazing. Standouts were "Blood Bank", "Creature Fear", "Holocene" and "The Wolves (Act 1 & 2)". This was such a good show that when he announced that he was on his last song, I looked at the time in shock because I seriously felt like he'd only been on stage for twenty minutes. Time flew by too fast.

Jason had his camera and took lots of pictures, but I do have a couple that I took with my phone and Instagrammed.

Our seats were on the left side balcony, which gave a neat view of what a standing ovation in sold-out Massey Hall looks like:


My advice to you is that you ever have the chance to see Bon Iver, do it. This was one of my favourite shows ever, and you guys know that I go to a lot of shows, so that's saying something.

Thursday night was Tori Amos with my friend Eric who is my Tori Amos BFF. I'm pretty sure that we have gone to see her every time she's in been town since 2002, except for when she was on her last tour, because we were both on vacation. Anyway, we were joined by my friend Karen for this show, and it was nice to add someone to the Tori circle.

I would never take someone to a Tori show who wasn't a Tori fan. In between shows, I forget how seeing her is almost a religious-like experience for me. There is something about watching her play her music that leaves me in absolute awe. She is so powerful and amazing, and has such a deep catalogue of songs and she'll always surprise you with which ones she pulls out.

This tour is for her classically-themed Night of Hunters album, and she performed with her piano and a string quartet. They played as we waited for her to come out.

When Tori come out I couldn't help but notice her gorgeous shoes. I even took a close-up picture of them. I'm amazed that she can work the pedals of a piano and a keyboard at the same time in those things.


Here are some rather dark-looking shots that I still kind of like because they show how expressive she is while performing.



Her background curtain lit up like stars during many songs. Here she is during "Winter" which is such a great song, and appropriate for this time of year.



I forget what song she was playing here, but I really like this shot I took.


She played such a great selection of "classics" like "Spark", "Precious Things", "Winter", "Cruel", "Cooling", "Playboy Mommy" and some ones from newer albums like "Taxi Ride" and "Big Wheel". "Taxi Ride" is a special song to me, because I *think* it's about friends (you never can tell with Tori songs, ha-ha) and it's got the line "I'm glad you're on my side still" which always picks me up when I'm feeling down because there are so many people who I'm glad to have on my side. I told this to Eric during the show, and we had a nice friend moment, 'cuz we've been on each other's sides since I was in third year university and we don't see each other as often as we'd like (usually a couple of times a year, but we've been doing better this year), but it's still one of my most special friendships. Awww. Tori brings us together.

Anyway, back to the show. The string quartet that she played with was amazing. Sometimes she played some songs on her own too. The quartet played one one of their own compositions which was quite good.

Tori even played a song from her Christmas album: "Star of Wonder". It's a re-working of "We Three Kings" and is my favourite from that album. It was such a magical evening.

In a week's time, I saw three shows at Massey Hall and they were all amazing. What a trifecta.

2011 had been such a great concert year for me. 2012 - you've got a tough act to follow, but I'm optimistic you'll deliver. I've already got tickets for two shows (Los Campesinos! and Jack's Mannequin), so it's looking good!