On to the show! I’ve been rolling a lot of thoughts around my head trying to come up with a recap worthy of this event. For me it was a singular experience that I’m not sure I’m skilled enough to express in words. I’m giving it a shot though.
Someone at work asked me what kind of music Tom Waits performs. I couldn’t really give him a definitive answer. There are elements of blues, jazz,
Tin Pan Alley,
sea shanties, and rock. And I don’t know what to call it, but sometimes his songs sound like the band is playing instruments made of the things you find in a junkyard. You know, like Fat Albert. Tom has evolved over his career to become a true original. And I think there is a connection to some of the Beat poets and writers in his lyrics, he sings about the kind of down-on-their-luck characters and oddballs that they wrote about.
When we entered the theatre they weren’t letting anyone in to the seating area, just letting people mill around in the lobby. It got pretty crowded in there and you couldn’t leave and re-enter, so we milled. It was an interesting crowd which skewed toward the older end. There was a sense of anticipation in the air created by everyone’s expectations of what they were about to see. One of my friends was dead-set on procuring some “merch” as he called it, and I wanted to get a poster myself. Turns out there was no merch to be had. We had seen a couple of people with posters in hand before we entered the theatre, but they turned out to be the posters from the theatre windows.
And I am not going to call this a concert. This was a “show” in every sense of the word. Tom is quite the showman, striking crazy poses, dancing, cracking jokes between songs. His voice is a thing of wonder to behold (behear?). When he started talking after the first song, it was kind of hard to hear him and it made me think that his voice could go. It seemed to get stronger as he went along though. The presentation was fairly minimal but it perfectly suited the performance. There was a very simple stage backed by two enormous white curtains, and there were lights on the stage floor that cast elongated shadows of Tom and the band up on the curtains throughout the performance. The curtain was also back-lit, so when Tom made his entrance by striking a scarecrow pose everyone went nuts.
In the middle of the show a piano was brought onstage, and Tom performed a few songs with only bass accompaniment. The lights from the stage cast a really neat image of the piano keys and Tom’s hands onto the backing curtain. At the end of this segment Tom told the piano to “Lie down, lie down. Lie down, piano” as it was carted off the stage.
For me some of the highlights were
An Invitation To The Blues,
Shore Leave,
Goin’ Out West,
Dead and Lovely, and
The House Where Nobody Lives.
Circus took me by surprise. It is a spoken word song from his latest album,
Real Gone. I never really paid much attention to the recorded version, I always just thought it an inferior echo of
Frank’s Wild Years or
What’s He Building In There, but in person it was transformed by that amazing voice. We were listening to a master storyteller. He came back again and again to the line “Leave the Bum”, which on the record is a line of no particular importance - hard to hear, even.
The Ocean Doesn’t Want Me was amazing too. I’ll hear that song with new ears from now on. Tom pulled out a giant bullhorn for the song
219, which was pretty cool. I don’t think he was getting the sound he wanted though because he ended the song by cupping his hands in front of the mic, which sounded a little better than the bullhorn in my opinion. I’ve seen lot of people on the internet complaining about the guitarist, but I thought he sounded great.
There was only one encore, and at first I was disappointed, but I realized we got our money’s worth as the show was nearly 2 and a half hours long! The first song of the encore was
Day After Tomorrow. It was just Tom and an acoustic guitar, and it was goosebump-worthy. Another one I’ll never hear the same way again.
I know Tom can be an acquired taste, but if you ever get the chance to go to one of his shows,
do it. Don’t even think about it. Just go.
The Setlist
SingaporeMake it RainHoist That RagShore LeaveAin't Going to the WellYesterday is HereGod's Away on Business'Til the Money Runs Out219 (My Baby's Leaving on the)Dead and LovelyTango Till They're SoreHouse Where Nobody LivesThe Ocean Doesn't Want MeInvitation to the BluesWhistling Past the GraveyardHeart Attack and VineShake ItIt Rains on MeWho's Been Talkin'CircusTrampled RoseGet Behind the MuleMurder in the Red BarnGoin’ Out WestEncoreDay After TomorrowSins of the FatherLabels: Concerts, Travel
The sign for the hotel that we stayed at was right outside our window. It reminds me of those hotel signs you always see in film noirs.
OK, this was really weird. They were filming something at this restaurant across the street from the hotel. And they were filming all day. I woke up around 10AM that morning and looked out the window and saw that they were filming. At 10PM when we left to go hit Beale Street, they were still filming! I guess acting really is hard work! And boring. I have no idea what it was, but it looked like something designed to appeal to teenagers.
The sign for the hotel that we stayed at was right outside our window. It reminds me of those hotel signs you always see in film noirs.
A couple of shots of the Memphis Business Journal sign from the hotel.
This is a view from the hotel room of the Orpheum Theatre where Tom Waits played.
This is a view from the hotel room of sunset over the Mississippi River.
OK, this was really weird. They were filming something at this restaurant across the street from the hotel. And they were filming all day. I woke up around 10AM that morning and looked out the window and saw that they were filming. At 10PM when we left to go hit Beale Street, they were still filming! I guess acting really is hard work! And boring. I have no idea what it was, but it looked like something designed to appeal to teenagers.
