Tom Waits

I'm not a reviewer, so this will be brief.  Tom Waits was awesome.  He played some things I didn't expect; some things I did; and didn't play a lot of things I didn't expect.  But really, it wasn't really about the music.  It was a culmination of 10 years of becoming a Rain Dog.

In the late 80s, I first saw Tom Waits on the David Letterman show, probably a repeat, performing "Downtown Train" -- the Rod Stewart version had recently been released and was a favorite of mine.  He stayed under my radar, though, for another 10 years, when I decided one late fall afternoon in Chapel Hill that I absolutely needed to buy a Tom Waits album.  I pulled The Essential off the shelf, paid Chapel Hill Phil and went home only to discover that in my haste, I'd purchased a John Waite greatest hits album instead.  So much for being hip.

I tried again on my next CD shopping jaunt (which happened every other weekend, coinciding with payday week). After lunch at Mama Dips, I scooted over to Chapel Hill Phil's.   I grabbed Rain Dogs because that's the one with "Downtown Train" and then asked Chapel Hill Phil to recommend a second album.  He suggested Swordfishtrombones, and after the John Waites debacle, who was I to question.  I took them home; popped them in the Aiwa, opened a beer, sat out on the porch which over looked the creek, behind which I could make out the Budweiser distributorship (which always assuaged my homesickness and settled in).

The first thing I realized:  I was not hip enough for Tom Waits.  The CDs were promptly shelved and forgotten until SmartBrian Redux the following January.  I knew that Brian was a fan and I shared my dismay with him.  I even told him that I loved Shawn Colvin's cover of "Heart of Saturday Night" but couldn't imagine Tom Waits singing this song.  After trivia and dinner, I went back to SmartBri's, ostensibly to listen to the Tom Waits version.  Which we did, but ultimately this led to the end of a year and a half of self-imposed celibacy.

Tom Waits now had a special place in my heart.  I bought some Tom Waits training wheels in the form of Closing Time and Heart of Saturday Night.  Later that year, Mule Variations was released.  I bought it, of course, and it played continuously in my car.  It was in my car, in fact, the weekend I drove up to Berwyn, IL to see Steve Forbert at Fitzgerald's.  I had plans to stay the night with my friend Bill who lived in Willowbrook, and driving through Berwyn on my way to the Expressway, listening to Mule Variations, I finally, finally GOT IT.  I was hip enough for Tom Waits, I was.  I'd just driven alone to an area of Chicago I'd never been, met up with people I'd only known through discussion boards and email, and now I was driving through a strange part of town in the middle of the night.  It all made sense.

From that point on, I waited and waited and waited for an opportunity to see Tom Waits live.

So, imagine my chagrin, when a half hour before the show began, Bob Matonis* sits in the seat directly in front of mine.  I looked at Berk and the guy sitting next to her.  I'd just uttered mere moments before "I hate the Bob Matonis."

"You have to be fucking kidding me," I said.

I poked Bob on the shoulder.  "Bob," I warned, "If you dare stand up in front of me and do your stupid dancing thing, I will KICK. YOUR. ASS.  And, I'm not even fucking kidding.  You will not ruin this show for me."

He said, "You must not be familiar with the Bob Matonis etiquette."

"That must be like military intelligence."

He ignored me, and explained that at shows like this (where, I guess, there are seats) he stays seated and "grooves to himself."  But, he warned me, if people in front of him are standing then he will stand and at that point all bets are off.

For the most part, he was well behaved.  During the encore, he stood, just as he said he would and began to do the lateral version of the Bob special.  Fortunately, my view wasn't hindered (although, I did find it distracting).  However, the poor girl to his left nearly missed several elbows to her face.  I poked him again.  "Dude, you really need to get out of her personal space."  And I poked him again for good measure.

The End.


*You can figure this one out.  I refuse to be a hit on a google search for his better known name.

Next up:  The Aftershow Show

Posted by: Book on 7/1/2008 11:47:46 AM , 7 comments