tom waits - "glitter and doom" @ the fox theatre/atlanta (07.05.2008)

still on a great 'post-show' buzz. a couple of posts back i mentioned fearing that i sounded like a “gushing fool." well, here we go again...

the show was last night was absolutely incredible, a great show/set, the acoustics in the fox are amazing and the mix was perfect, kudos to the guy running the sbd.
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so, about 9:00 PM, the theater goes dark and slowly, dim lights begin to highlight the backdrop on the stage. you can sense, but not really “see” any movement. then, a white hot spot hits center stage, and seemingly out of nowhere… standing on a beat-up riser, in a dark “slightly worn” suit and a dark bowler hat, with a huge smile on his face is the reason that we are there, tom waits. hands straight up in the air, he starts stomping on the riser, the crowd is standing, clapping, whistling and screaming. white plumes of “smoke” start floating up into the lights from the riser. he stomps harder, smoke keeps rising and his smile gets bigger. he stomps and smiles, we clap and whistle, seems to be a fair trade.

and we're off...

there were so many highlights it’s hard to know where to start. vocally, he was "on the mark," with it being the last night of the tour, i guess he didn't feel like he had to "save" his voice ( ;-) ) and before i start rambling too much, it seems appropriate to note that his band was fantastic, all great players (named below), tight and meshing perfectly with each other and with him. he has added a full time horn player and keyboardist and larry taylor had moved from his usual position on bass to "guesting" on lead guitar on a few songs (apparently only @ the atlanta show). other than taylor and his son casey on drums/percussion it was a completely different group of players than when i saw him a couple of years ago. i guess "the" highlight(s) for me would have to be "9th and hennepin" followed by a rocking “lie to me.” during the intro for “9th and hennepin," a single bare unlit light bulb dropped out of (seemingly) nowhere right next to tom’s face. unfazed, he continued talking. as soon as he kicked into the song, the light, much to tom’s "surprise, and shock," flickered on and became a prop which he mastered for the duration of the song, then “poof”…it disappeared much as it appeared.

"chocolate jesus," "hold on" & "get behind the mule" were also pretty amazing and would have to be close seconds for me and the "innocent when you dream/hoist that rag/make it rain" trifecta was also pretty damn sweet. at the end of and extended take on “make it rain,” and with tom chanting (ie: screaming) a command to “make it rain,” glitter began to fall over him like rain (apparently from that same magical place that gave us the light bulb) covering his dark suit and bowler. very cool visually. towards the end of the set, regardless of your beliefs, if you weren’t ready to shout a big, loud "AMEN" or "MERCY" after he took the sold-out crowd of 4,000+ to church with "jesus gonna be here," well then, you just weren’t alive and breathing to begin with.

along the way, he charmed us with a couple of subtle, yet hilarious stories about; $300,000 watches (or $9.95 CVS watches), condiments (or condom-mints) and alphabet soup (or nazi pas-ticas) as only he could, before closing the set with a rowdy and fun “singapore.” after a short break, he and the band returned and kicked off the encore w/a killer, extended ”eyeball kid” where during the chorus, he playfully swapped out his black bowler with one covered with tiny mirrors reflecting the spotlight all over the theatre. at the end of the song there was great little exchange between him, casey and the audience. then he sent us all home happy with the appropriate “anywhere I lay my head.”

he started the show with the big smiles and we left the theatre with them. again, seems to be a fair trade.

what a night. he's as brilliant a showman and performer as he is a writer and musician, which says a lot. there was not a single lowlight/mediocre moment in the evening. hell, it was tom waits!

i found the quote below in "the columbus (oh) dispatch" it seems to describe him perfectly, much better than i ever could...

Waits may be one of the country's best accidental musicologists. He rummages through an assortment of genres — blues, gospel, jazz, folk, Latin, beat-box and cabaret, to name some — and weaves them together into something new. Hearing one of his songs for the first time, one is almost positive that it's an old favorite. Yet everything he does is remarkably original and fresh.

Add to that his unmistakeable lyrics — inspired in part by the Beat Generation and refined by his partnership with his wife, writer Kathleen Brennan — and it's easy to see why he is one of the most important singer-songwriters of this age.

The showmanship is always a direct relation to the music. He opened in the guise of a revivalist preacher, booming out Lucinda, Way Down in the Hole and Falling Down.

His antics reached a peak later in The Eyeball Kid, an oddity of a song in which, for one verse, he donned a mirror-ball hat. As he revolved slowly in the interludes, his head became a makeshift light show.

When the songs slowed down and the thoughts grew deeper, though, he stilled his physical energy and flowed into such profound moments which held the audience absolutely still until their final chords.

In a sense, Waits is a medium, channeling the spirits of long-dead bluesmen, pioneers of rock and traveling minstrels. His voice, while aging, still can travel from a growl to a wail to a whisper in a split second.

Waits doesn't create new worlds; he makes people rethink the past, present, and future. His song Time, sums it up: “… their memory's like a train/You can see it getting smaller as it pulls away/And the things you can't remember tell the things you can't forget/That history puts a saint in every dream.”

on a personal note, it was also kind of a sentimental journey for me. many years ago, the fox (and atlanta in general) was where “i cut my live music teeth.” in my younger days, there was a time that i rarely missed any show of note there. my friends (and sally, my “ex”) and i were regulars. we saw it all. it was nice to be back there again, it has probably been 20+ years since i have seen a show in that beautiful place and it was just as sweet as i remembered it. lotsa good nights, good vibes and good memories for me in that building, it felt "good." so to top off the night, just for the hell of it it, i decided to detour down piedmont, past the old “broadview plaza” and blew a kiss and say a “thank you” to the corner where the old “great southeast music hall” once stood. i also spent a lot of great nights with friends there and that was where, 30+ years ago, i was fortunate enough to see mr. waits perform for the first time and was introduced to the genius that is tom waits and i’ve been hooked since (btw, he was the opener for the comedian, martin mull who wrote a song about the old music hall called "i've played some shitholes, but this takes the cake" =) ).

the set:
lucinda > ain't going down to the well
down in the hole
falling down
chocolate jesus
all the world is green
cemetery polka
who's been talkin'* > 'til the money runs out
such a scream
november
hold on
black market baby
9th and hennepin
lie to me
lucky day
on the nickel
lost in the harbour
innocent when you dream
hoist that rag
make it rain
dirt in the ground
get behind the mule
hang down your head
jesus gonna be here
singapore
encore:
eyeball kid
anywhere i lay my head

*howlin' wolf cover

the band:
patrick warren - keyboards
omar torrez - guitars
vincent henry - horns & acoustic guitar
casey waits - drums and percussion
seth ford-young - bass
sullivan waits - congas and clarinet (and selling t-shirts and books before & after the show...)

*larry taylor joined in on guitar on several songs.

i had to "stealth" the pictures, so there is nothing particularly "artistic." more just to document the evening...