Tori Amos @ Sheffield City Hall, 8th April 2026
- John Hayhurst
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
Sheffield’s opening night is loose, left-field and loaded with surprises—Tori Amos reshaping her catalogue in real time with deep cuts and daring swings.
Words and Photos - John Hayhurst
At Sheffield City Hall, Tori Amos begins her 60+ date UK & European run and after opener ‘Fire To Your Plain’ mid-thought says “Trying some new things,” she grins. It’s less a warning than a promise—and the setlist that follows backs it up with restless, sometimes audacious logic.
Without pause, she slips into ‘Shush’, the live debut from forthcoming album In Times of Dragons, its slow, gothic build hanging heavy in the air. It’s a bold one-two: unfamiliar territory right out of the gate, but the room is eager and cheering along no matter what. A Tori Amos crowd is used to changing setlists every night, some of them will follow her across 20 or more shows on this 2026 run.
From there, the show begins to unfurl in curious, deep-cut directions. ‘Ruby Through the Looking-Glass’ arrives early, delicate and ghostly, before ‘Little Amsterdam’ drags things into something earthier, stranger. Amos is already pulling threads from across decades, refusing any obvious through-line. ‘Don’t Make Me Come to Vegas’ snaps the mood again—wry, sharp, and suddenly playful—before ‘Mary’ softens the room into something close to reverence.
It’s this push and pull that defines the pacing. ‘Putting the Damage On’ lands like a quiet exhale, then ‘Pandora’s Aquarium’ blooms outward, the three new backing singers—her self-styled “angels”—adding lift and texture. They’re used heavily, sometimes dramatically so, reshaping songs that longtime fans might think they know inside out. On ‘Caught a Lite Sneeze’, the added voices give the chorus a jagged, almost theatrical edge.
There’s a sense Amos is feeling out the room as much as her back catalogue material. Tempos stretch, endings drift, transitions blur. This is especially true on the surprise of the night ‘Witness’, hauled out for only the second time ever and hadn’t been played in nearly 21 years. It was stretched into a sprawling, hypnotic centrepiece.
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Between songs, she’s dry, self-aware, occasionally wickedly funny. The looseness extends to everything: arrangements, pacing, even the emotional temperature of the room. You get the sense tomorrow night could look completely different.
By the time ‘Crucify’ arrives late in the main set, it feels almost grounding—one of the few moments that resembles a traditional anchor point. But even here, Amos avoids nostalgia, delivering it with a shifting, elastic intensity rather than a faithful recreation.
The encore flips the switch. ‘Big Wheel’ struts in with bite, before giving way to ‘Cornflake Girl’—not a guaranteed inclusion in her set any more, but here deployed with precision. It’s the closest the night comes to release, the audience finally allowed to exhale after 90 minutes of careful unpredictability.
For an opening night, it’s strikingly unpolished—in the best way. Amos isn’t presenting a finished product; she’s building something in front of you, testing edges, rearranging the past, and refusing to settle into routine. If this is where the tour starts, it’s going to keep shifting shape night after night and I now understand why you need to see more than one show.
