A couple weeks ago, I saw Tori Amos in a nice, sit-down venue here in Denver. Nearly as notable as the extremely good performance was the people-watching: the general crowd vibe can only be described as Lilith Fair-ass. Particularly the universally goateed dudes sprinkled through the crowd.

We're talking dudes chatting about Evanescence deep cuts in between sets.
Dudes for whom the name Trent has an industrial, rather than agricultural, association;
Dudes who get it, ok, that cargo shorts aren't cool but still have a bunch of stuff they need to carry;
Dudes wearing those hats with a short brim and an offset Gaelic icon optimized for wear at a jaunty angle;
Dudes who might mention having organized a pants-free flash mob on the Metro multiple times despite having just met you;
Dudes around whom you better not confuse an amulet with a necklace;
Dudes in grippy Merrell shoes, whatever those are;
And me.

Excuse the bit; before I close up shop here I'm hoping to do a roast of a writer whom I particularly dislike, and I'm practicing the form (if you would not be opposed to an entire week's worth of HR being devoted to highly personal, highly esoteric criticisms of a specific writer, please let me know and I'll fast-track it).

It actually wasn't about the dudes at all. Mostly alone and nearly invisible, we were but driftwood among a great tidal wave of women for whom this was evidently the event of the year. I consider myself pretty conversant in the Tori Amos catalogue, but on multiple occasions I was unable to identify songs for a full minute because of the deafening cheers from those who had spotted it by the first note.

Tori Amos, as I discovered, is a fucking massive deal. She's a bit of an oddity in that regard; sometime around when I was born, she established absolute ubiquity among a very particular demographic beyond which she seems to have failed to expand. Even after the show, I don't think that I've ever heard anyone say her name out loud. Regardless, her albums are well worth your time - the first four are all bona fide classics, and the ones after that don't so much fall off as grow stale as her style ages out of the extremely 1990s moment for which it was clearly intended.

Highlights: Crucify, Precious Things, Little Earthquakes