Tori Amos Was Never a Phase
In Times of Dragons Tour | Taft Theatre | Cincinnati, Ohio | August 8, 2026
Every Tori Amos concert eventually leads to the same question.
What did she play?
That’s part of the fun of being a Tori Amos fan.
With some artists, you can look at the setlist from the night before and have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to hear when they roll into your city.
Not Tori.
Every night is different.
A friend of mine saw her in Detroit a couple of nights before Cincinnati and got “Silent All These Years.” A few nights later, Louisville got “Winter” and “Pretty Good Year,” which still has me kicking myself for not making the drive.
But Cincinnati?
We got “God.”
We got “Past the Mission.”
We got “Crucify.”
We got “Caught a Lite Sneeze.”
And we got “Strange.”
Oh man.
We got “Strange.”
Sometimes You Hit the Tori Lottery
I came to Tori Amos a little later than some fans.
There are people who have been there since Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink. My introduction came around Strange Little Girls, which was also around the time I first saw Tori live.
Of course, once I got in, I went backward.
I discovered those earlier records and realized just how much incredible music I had missed.
Then came Scarlet’s Walk.
That record became incredibly important to me, and “Strange” remains one of my favorite Tori Amos songs.
That’s the thing about being a Tori fan. We all have those songs.
So when Tori began playing “Strange” Saturday night at the Taft Theatre, I felt like I’d hit the lottery.
Someone else gets “Winter.”
Someone gets “Silent All These Years.”
On this night, Cincinnati got “Strange.”
And it was ours.
That’s also why the conversation surrounding a Tori Amos tour continues long after everyone leaves the theater. Fans compare setlists. We talk about what our city got. We get jealous of the songs somebody else heard. And every once in a while, we get the one song we desperately hoped would somehow find its way into our night.
A Tori Amos concert doesn’t really end with the encore.
It ends when we’re finally done comparing setlists.
And I’m not sure we ever are.
When Tori Sits, Everybody Sits
Before Tori played a single note Saturday night, you could see the relationship that exists between her and her audience.
She walked onto the stage.
The sold-out Taft Theatre stood to greet her.
Tori smiled, waved and made her way to the piano.
Then she sat down.
And almost instinctively, everybody sat with her.
It wasn’t because the energy disappeared.
It was respect.
There was a time when people would yell song titles at Tori throughout a show, hoping maybe she’d play their favorite.
Saturday night felt different.
Nobody needed to tell her what to play.
We were there to hear what she wanted to give us.
People applauded when they recognized those first few notes of a favorite song, but then the room became quiet again.
And everybody listened.
Really listened.
I think maybe we’ve all grown up together.
There Is Still Nothing Like Tori Amos
I can remember watching that fierce young redhead behind the piano all those years ago.
There simply wasn’t anybody like her.
She could be beautiful, angry, vulnerable, strange, funny and absolutely fearless, sometimes within the same song.
Decades have passed since then.
We’ve changed.
Tori has changed.
Those songs have changed too.
But that fire is still there.
Watching Tori move between the grand piano and keyboards Saturday night, I couldn’t help thinking about all the years that have passed since I first discovered her.
Songs written decades ago aren’t being pulled out simply because people remember them.
They’re different now.
They carry everything that has happened since they were written.
There’s more life behind them.
More experience.
More Tori.
That’s what keeps this from becoming nostalgia.
This isn’t an artist trying to recreate who she was 30 years ago.
This is Tori Amos in 2026.
And there is still nothing like Tori Amos.
Still Creating, Still Changing
That was also obvious in the new material from In Times of Dragons.
Tori gave the new record plenty of room during the evening, but the new songs didn’t feel separated from everything that came before them.
They became another part of the story.
The addition of three backing vocalists also brought another dimension to the performance, adding layers and textures to songs we’ve heard countless times before.
That’s what I appreciate about Tori.
She’s still playing with these songs.
Still rearranging them.
Still finding something new inside them.
And she’s still writing the next chapter.
There are plenty of artists who could reach this point in their career, put together a greatest-hits set, play the same songs every night and send everyone home perfectly happy.
Tori Amos has never seemed particularly interested in doing things that way.
Thank goodness.
Tori Amos Was Never a Phase
I met people Saturday night who had seen Tori countless times.
I also met people experiencing their very first Tori Amos concert.
Some of them asked me what they should expect.
My answer was pretty simple.
Expect to feel something.
Maybe you’ll cry.
Maybe you’ll hear the song you’ve been waiting years to hear.
Maybe you’ll discover a song you didn’t know you needed.
That’s a Tori Amos concert.
And that’s why, after all these years, people are still traveling from city to city, comparing setlists and talking about these performances long after the final note.
Some artists become memories.
Some become nostalgia.
Tori Amos became part of people’s lives.
That’s something entirely different.
And recently, I saw a comment from a fan on one of our social media posts about the show that summed it up better than I ever could:
“Tori Amos was never a phase.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Tori Amos Cincinnati Photo Gallery
