Me, Tori, and my friend Linda after the concert at Baltimore Arena

I've been a very big Tori Amos fan for about five years now. I saw Tori in concert four times, twice in 1994 and twice in 1996. I've subscribed to Tori newsletters, I bought the Tori Amos biography, and I have all of her albums. So you can imagine how excited I was when I actually got an opportunity to meet Tori in person.

Tori donated pairs of tickets to a number of concerts on her 1998 tour to raise money for RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, a charity that Tori co-founded to help victims of sexual abuse. The tickets were sold through an on-line auction; people who submitted the highest bid for a particular pair of tickets as of a given date and time won, and the amount they bid was donated to RAINN. As an extra incentive to potential bidders, Tori agreed to meet the winners on the night of show. That was incentive enough for me, and I was lucky enough to win two tickets to the October 17th concert at Baltimore Arena.

The concert was fantastic. We had incredible seats - front row, center stage. Just about the best seats in the house. I had seen Tori in concert four times before, and those shows were all great, but this one blew them all away. Our seats were front row, center stage. Being up so close added a dimension of energy that I hadn’t experienced before. It was by far the best concert I’ve ever been to. She opened with "Precious Things", one of my favorite songs, and she played three of my other favorites during the show: "Little Earthquakes", "Sugar", and "Caught A Lite Sneeze". It was different seeing her play with a full band. After the first few songs, maybe for old time's sake, the band left the stage and Tori played "Happy Phantom" and "Merman" solo. She dedicated "Merman" to the memory of Mathew Shephard.

When Tori came out for the first of her two encores, I noticed she was wearing what looked like a red K-Mart clerk's vest. I have no idea what that was supposed to mean. Maybe it wasn't supposed to mean anything.

My memory of going backstage to meet Tori after the show is a little confused, probably because it was so hard for me to believe that it was actually happening. I remember being ushered to Tori's dressing room with my friend Linda and the other auction winners. Tori shook hands with each of us and signed autographs & had pictures taken with the other couple. Then she came over to us and signed my "from the choirgirl hotel" CD, and we had a couple of pictures taken of Linda & me with Tori on Linda's camera. Tori & Linda chatted for a couple minutes; I wanted to say something, but my mind kinda went blank after "Hi, I'm Tom." Then as we were getting ready to leave, Linda, realizing how quite I'd been, nudged me and said something like "Tom, do you want to say anything before we go?"

I had dreamed of someday being lucky enough to meet Tori. But I'd had no idea what to expect at this meeting and I hadn't thought about what I would say to Tori if I did actually get to talk to her. I would have liked to have told her how much her music means to me, but at that particular moment in Tori’s dressing room I had no idea how to put those thoughts into words. I did feel that I had to say something, so I just said what was on my mind at that moment, which was:

 "This is really, really, really cool!"

Not real profound, but people laughed, and Tori came over and gave me a hug. Which was even cooler, although I didn't say that.

We were ushered out of the dressing room, and that was that. All in all, it was a very special night for me, and I’m grateful to both Tori and to RAINN for giving me an experience I will treasure.

Pictures of Tori onstage during the show