This occurs halfway through the singer-songwriter\u2019s mesmerising concert, as she explains that the ancient Irish god Lugh played a signature role in the recording of her new album, In Times of Dragons.<\/p>\n
The record is a sort of fairy\u2011tale take on unfolding global events. Its political nature is spelt out by the lead single, Shush, which Amos performs early in the night; it\u2019s about an evil billionaire who \u201cno longer believes that freedom and democracy are compatible\u201d.<\/p>\n
The LP is a return to form for an artist whose 1990s output applied an esoteric gloss to songs about feminism and the patriarchy. Call it Grand Guignol girl power. It\u2019s also a return to Ireland, with which she has history. She credits a sacrificial offering to Lugh \u2013 her husband\u2019s good whiskey \u2013 with getting the album over the line.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe helped me write this record,\u201d she says before plunging into Crazy, a proggy meditation from 2002 about emotional suffering and the kindness of strangers (in this instance, an ancient Irish deity and metaphysical patron of the arts).<\/p>\n
Amos doesn\u2019t do greatest-hits shows. But fans nonetheless hang on every vocal and keening piano note during this plunge into her back catalogue. She has brought along a backing trio of female singers who contribute a molten melodrama to an evening that opens with the gothic power ballad Fire to Your Plain.<\/p>\n
The set is framed in fiery red and purple lighting \u2013 a literal play on the title In Times of Dragons. She leans even further into the fantastical element during Shush, as the outline of a giant fire\u2011breathing lizard appears in the centre of a raised circle, the Game of Thrones<\/a> vibe adding a sense of the epic to Amos\u2019s stark warning about tyrants in our midst.<\/p>\n The singer\u2019s relationship with Ireland is rich and deep. She kept a house in the picturesque Co Cork coastal town of Kinsale for many years, and recorded much of Boys for Pele, her 1996 masterpiece, in a church in Delgany, in Co Wicklow. <\/p>\n At that point she was regarded as one of the \u201cbig three\u201d of singular female artists, alongside Bj\u00f6rk<\/a> and PJ Harvey<\/a>. She rewinds to the period with Pele\u2019s fabulously menacing opening track, Beauty Queen\/Horses, which here features intense piano runs and a vocal so fierce it almost drags the air from your lungs.<\/p>\n Amos is especially brilliant at simultaneously deconstructing and elevating tunes she has performed from the start of her career, as she demonstrates by reworking her early hit Crucify into a haunting odyssey of many parts. It\u2019s lush and jazzy one moment, ethereal and stripped down the next, its chorus given a rocket boost by her backing vocalists. <\/p>\n The encore finishes with Amos\u2019s best\u2011known song, Cornflake Girl, a rollercoaster fever dream that she cranks up a level by launching herself on the piano. It brings down the curtain with a satisfying whiff of brimstone, confirming that this mother of dragons still knows how to roar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tori AmosBord G\u00e1is Energy Theatre, Dublin\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606 Tori Amos skips the traditional blandishments about how great it is to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[15456,93,61,60,164428],"class_list":["post-408322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bord-gais","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tori-amos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Tori](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/5CIDALPJDBDB3IZXBHYR6W4P5Q.jpg\")
Tori Amos: the Game of Thrones vibe adds a sense of the epic to the singer\u2019s stark warning about tyrants in our midst. Photograph: Shirlaine Forrest\/WireImage <\/p>\n