TORONTO -- Tori Amos has an incredible, otherworldly voice and piano playing skills that are truly astonishing.

That said, two hours of her ethereal wailing over songs that sound remarkably similar can test the patience of a casual fan, even if it seemed about 4,000 Tori-philes couldn’t get enough of it on Saturday night at the Molson Amphitheatre.

In the past, the singer-pianist has performed both on her own, as she did on Saturday night, or with a small band, and has often broken up her set with lots of animated chatting and funny stories.

This time, however, Amos kept the stage banter to a minimum on what was an awful night of windy, wet and cool weather, and played a rather serious, intense show, despite occasional waves to the audience.

Even when some fans shouted “Happy Birthday Tori!” — she turned 42 on Aug. 22 — she barely smiled.

It was also the smallest crowd I’ve seen yet at the lakeside venue this summer — yes, even fewer people than at Clay Aiken’s show on Thursday night — and perhaps that was disappointment-making.

She did laugh when what sounded like a man yelled out his affection.

“I was going to say, fall is coming,” Amos said, while regaining her composure.

To her credit, Amos did offer up a much-needed detour about mid-way through the show, when she opened what she called “Tori’s Piano Bar: Now Taking Requests” for covers. She certainly seemed to know exactly what she wanted to play to an audience on this side of the border as she trotted out two Canadian classics: Gordon Lightfoot’s If You Could Read My Mind and Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now.

“It’s so nice to be up there where a lot of us want to relocate,” said Amos with smile and a pause: “No words necessary.”

Amos opened the show with Original Sinsuality from her autobiographical album, The Beekeeper, released in February as a companion to the memoir Tori Amos: Piece By Piece.

Dressed elegantly in a flowing, pink chiffon dress, complete with high heels and big jewelry, Amos was dwarfed on her large stage by an apple tree around whose trunk was wrapped a snake, and an octagon-shaped video screen that projected images ranging from clouds to raging seas.

She also made a pit stop to reapply lip gloss and pop a lozenge into her mouth.

“Lubrication girls — you need it even up here,” she said, playfully.

Amos, a very physical and dramatic performer, would often stand with her legs splayed, either to emphasize a vocal or to play both piano and organ at the same time. In total, there were four instruments on stage, a piano, an electric piano and two organs, and Amos handled all of them masterfully. The Beekeeper was represented by other new songs Cars And Guitars, General Joy, Jamaica Inn, as well as the title track. Among material from other collections were Icicle, Blood Roses, Spark and Taxi Ride.