First night nerves

In less than 48 hours, Tori Amos is due to perform in Australia for the first time in a decade, and I'm due to be there.

I have absolutely no idea where to set my expectation level. On one hand I'm still pinching myself that the opportunity ever presented itself to hear my favourite performer in concert, on the other I'm dealing with the fact that as a general rule I don't really like concerts. Everything about Saturday screams major event - only the 2nd time I've ever travelled out of town for a concert (the first was over a decade ago, Phil Collins, 10th row, and it was pretty well worth the three days of lost hearing it cost my over-sensitive ears), meeting up with people who are travelling even further than I am - but I don't want to overhype the whole thing in case something doesn't work out perfectly.

What if it turns out that I really don't like the excessively drawn out versions of songs, and I'm sitting next to two chatterboxes discussing their sexual exploits? What if (please Lord, NO) the accommodation I booked turns out to be complete crap? What if the airport suffers one of its notorious foggy mornings and I don't get to Sydney for four hours and everything else has to happen in a rush?

Meanwhile, despite those kinds of thoughts I'm so excited I'm bouncing off the walls. How I'm going to concentrate long enough to pack a bag is beyond me. I'll be the guy wearing his pyjama top because he left his freshly ironed shirt hanging on the door...

...and don't even get me started on the decision making involved with when to put my contact lenses in so they last all night!

Um, yes, I'm insane. I knew that. It's just who I am. ;-)

This blog was never supposed to turn into yet another "Tori is the greatest" kind of exercise, and I still emphatically don't believe in some kind of cultic heroine-worship that would make her into a divine being. Not every utterance that falls from her lips is gospel truth (in fact, I think her theology is rather off and at times she talks a lot of mysterious nonsense because she's trying to hide something). If she sneezes, I don't plan on trying to bottle the results.

Nevertheless the fact remains that she is the best pianist-composer it has been my privilege to encounter for a couple of generations. To my ear she has a compositional success rate worthy of Chopin and Rachmaninov. Musically, she is worth gushing about.

Stay tuned for more gushing accompanied by a set list.