First Night of Tom Waits' Glitter and Doom (PEHDTSCKJMBA) Tour:
Photo courtesy of Pitchfork
by Gina
Last night marked the first date on the Glitter and Doom tour and I had the good fortune of being one of the 1300+ people in attendance at the Orpheum in Phoenix AZ. The uncurtained stage was littered with instruments and decorated with decapitated gramophone horns, a fitting focal point in the 1920s Spanish Revival theater. Tom and co. (Seth Ford Young - bass; Patrick Warren - keyboards; Omar Torrez - guitars; Vincent Henry -woodwinds; Casey Waits -drums and percussion) took the stage just after 8pm and played as if they had been touring together for decades. The groove between the sextet was undeniable, with Tom conducting his band by moving his body like a conductor’s wand come to life. The Glitter and Doom tour marks the first time in a long time that Tom has toured with a band of this size, and the new arrangements he worked up for his band brought a fresh perspective to both old classics and recent favorites. Bret Gladstone wrote a stellar review for Rolling Stone, which includes great pictures and a complete set list. Read it below.
Notables in the audience - at least the ones I noted - included guitar legend Steve Vai, half of Weezer and Teller of Penn and Teller fame - an eclectic mix that speaks to the breadth and scope of Tom’s influence and allure. Tonight is show#2, so check back tomorrow for pictures of Tom warming up backstage by arm wrestling Alice Cooper, who supposedly lives in these parts…
Link:
http://www.antilabelblog.com/?p=356#more-356********************************************************
Tom Waits Spins Yarns, Sings About Jesus at Tour Opener in Phoenix
6/18/08, 12:42 pm EST
by Bret Gladstone
Photo: York/AP Photo
“The world is not my home,” Tom Waits sang on the opening night of his highly anticipated U.S. tour. “I’m just passing through.” One place Waits has always made his own is the stage, so no surprise that last night’s looked like a junkyard at midnight: nebulously lit and hung in mist.
Flanked by a menacing installation of horn speakers crackling out old-time phonograph music and surrounded by a graveyard of cigar-box banjoes, bullhorns and ramshackle guitars, Waits’ sextet took the stage at Phoenix’s Orpheum Theatre around 8:30 and powered into a lurching medley of “Lucinda” and “Aint Goin Down to the Well.” Set against his own towering silhouette, Waits was a drawn sketch of twisted limbs: heaving and panting like a stalled locomotive. Clutching the microphone with both hands as if it were the only thing keeping him up, he stomped his workman’s boots so hard the floorboards coughed up thick clouds of dust into the spotlight around his legs.
The 25 songs the band played were fever dreams from an old, weird America whose greatest trick has been convincing the world it’s been eradicated by modern life: an underworld of “Rain Dogs,” “Eyeball Kids” and “Black Market Babies”; of “Trampled Roses” and “Christmas Cards from Hookers in Minneapolis.” “Jesus Gonna Be Here” Waits coughed, but “God’s Away on Business.” Waits’ subjects are down and out American grotesques, and he spent the better part of his performance playing the demented preacher to that set: slightly oversized suit and bowler hat, arms spread out to their length, palms down, wide hands quavering or waggling an index finger. “Does life seem nasty, brutish and short?” he sang. “Come on up to the house.”
Sonically, Waits still sings like the devil he’s slated to play in the new Terry Gilliam flick, and he’s being backed by crack-squad of musicians precise enough to make his songs sound like they’re just always on the verge of coming apart at the seams — which is presumably how he wants them. Every instrument Waits played looked like it’s been salvaged, but that’s only a representation of how his art gets made. Waits, 58, ultimately spent the night demonstrating that he’s one of the last remaining character actors in American music: a self proclaimed “moonlighting” thespian who’s always known that music is another kind of theatre — a very particular storytelling practice — and that it’s all in the delivery.
Set List:
“Lucinda/ Ain’t Goin Down to the Well”
“Hoist That Rag”
“Come On Up to the House”
“Jesus Gonna Be Here”
“November”
“Black Market Baby”
“Rain Dogs”
“Trampled Rose”
“Goin’ Out West”
“Murder in the Red Barn”
“Anywhere I Lay my Head”
“Cemetary Polka”
“Get Behind the Mule”
“Eyeball Kid”
“Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis”
“Picture in a Frame”
“Invitation to the Blues”
“Innocent When You Dream”
“Lie to Me”
“Chocolate Jesus”
“Make it Rain”
Encore:
“Way Down in the Hole”
“God’s Away on Business”
“Time”
Link:
http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2008/06/18/tom-waits-spins-yarns...********************************************************
Glitter and Doom Tour Dates (so far):
United States:
6/17 - Phoenix, AZ - Orpheum
6/18 - Phoenix, AZ - Orpheum
6/20 - El Paso, TX - Plaza Theatre
6/22 - Houston, TX - Jones Hall
6/23 - Dallas, TX - Palladium
6/25 - Tulsa, OK - Brady Theatre s
6/26 - St. Louis, MO - Fox Theatre
6/28 - Columbus, OH - Ohio Theatre
6/29 - Knoxville, TN - Civic Auditorium
7/1 - Jacksonville, FL - Times Union Center
7/2 - Mobile, AL - Saenger Theatre
7/3 - Birmingham, AL - Alabama Theatre
7/5 - Atlanta, GA - Fox Theatre
Europe:
July 12 - San Sebastian, Spain – Auditorium Kursaal
July 14 & 15 - Barcelona, Spain – Auditorium Forum
July 17, 18 & 19 – Milan, Italy – Teatro Degli Arcimboldi
July 21 & 22 – Prague, Czech Republic – KCP
July 24 & 25 – Paris, France – Grand Rex
July 27 & 28 – Edinburgh, Scotland – Playhouse
July 30, 31 & August 1 – Dublin, Ireland - The Ratcellar, Phoenix Park
Link:
http://www.antilabelblog.com/?p=246
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First Night of Glitter and Doom (NSC) (Read 4,721 times)
