Tori Kelly Leaves Houston Fans Awestruck
A line of fans wrapped around the House of Blues as they waited for doors to open for the Houston stop of Tori Kelly’s Purple Skies Tour. The half-Puerto Rican-Jamaican singer-songwriter sold out the show just hours before she was set to take the stage. Fans interviewed revealed that they had been waiting for her to come back to Houston since her Hiding Place tour in 2018. She didn’t make those fans wait any longer than they had to, as she ended up starting the show ahead of schedule.
Photo Cr: Andy Cantu
Purple lights flash as the band gets the audience riled up for the moment Tori takes the stage. It was clear to everyone in the crowd that they were in for something special, but Tori still managed to exceed everyone’s expectations when she performed three back to back up-tempo tracks, including her hit song, “Should’ve Been Us.” Fans were instantly blown away by her energetic performance and her unbelievable live vocals.
While she didn’t have her first heart to heart with fans until later in the night, she constantly interacted with the audience during her songs and in between performances. It was a night full of shout outs, crowd hyping, and audience singalongs. It was clear throughout the night that Tori didn’t need to speak directly to her fans in order to connect with them as she continuously made the audience a core part of her performances.
Photo Cr: Andy Cantu
During the acoustic section of the show, Tori took song requests, listening intently as the crowd screamed out the song they wanted to hear live. In the end, Tori chose to sing “Paper Hearts” from her 2013 EP Foreword and “Funny” from her debut album Unbreakable Smile. Tori joked that fans had to help her out with the lyrics to “Funny” because it had been so long since she’d last performed it, but it was clear once she started that she knew the song by heart.
In addition to playing her classic tunes, Tori also performed multiple songs from her most recent album, TORI. The show began with “thing u do” and officially ended with “alive if i die” before the encore. However, one of the most notable performances from the new record was her self-proclaimed favorite song on the album, “oceans.” The final song in the acoustic portion of the show was a raw ballad that showcased both her vocal prowess and her ability to pour all of her emotions into every lyric.
Photo Cr: Andy Cantu
If the slower songs made the audience forget that Tori was as strong a performer as she was a vocalist, she made sure to remind everyone with “Hollow.” The track was full of energy and power as she kept up her intense singing skills while she danced around the stage. This performance also showed off her unbreakable connection with the audience as she encouraged them to sing along with her, turning the crowd into her chorus.
For her performance of “distance,” a song about wanting to close the distance between yourself and a loved one, Tori asked fans to facetime their friends and family. As she sang the song, fans passed her their phones for her to sing directly to their loved ones. She kept the phones turned to the audience, so the crowd could clearly see the reactions of the people on the screen once they realized they were being serenaded by their loved one’s favorite musician.
Photo Cr: Andy Cantu
Fans couldn’t get enough of Tori’s electric performances. By the time the show was coming to a close, the crowd went wild with her every move. After her mesmerizing performance of “shine on,” fans chanted her name for a minute straight, leaving her looking out at the audience in awe. She used that momentum to lead the crowd into an acapella intro for her song, “shelter,” where fans sang so loud that one would think there was a mic pointed in their direction.
As soon as Tori left the stage by running across it and filming the audience, fans immediately started begging for an encore. They only stopped when she finally came back to sing “missin u.”