On the Road Again
Live Reviews:

Tom Waits
August 24, 1999
The Hummingbird Centre, Toronto

As his second sold-out show at the Hummingbird Centre proves, Tom Waits is the weird uncle of today's pop music family.

Strolling to centre stage in front of instruments that look like they're just out of a musical pawnshop, the dark bard greets the audience with a "Happy New Year ...in advance!" He reaches into the pocket of a worn black suit jacket — he's in black from head to toe, looking like a gravedigger just off shift — and tosses a handful of glittering confetti over himself.

The audience, mostly folks in their 20's and 30's, greets the 50-year old wildly and waits for him to join the band. including veteran associates Larry Taylor on standup bass and Carlos Guitarlos on guitar along with percussionist and keyboards. The band shuffles through the first bars of "Jockey Full of Bourbon" from 1985's Rain Dogs. Waits offers up a vocal somewhere between a hack and a bark. Stomping his work boots with toes turned inward, he sings often out of time with the music.

This is a hell of an introduction. It's a signal that only Tom Waits can give: that this will be no ordinary concert experience. You're under Tom's big tent now.

The next two songs come from the 1992 album, Bone Machine. These apocalyptic spirituals, "Jesus Gonna Be Here" and "Earth Died Screaming," catapult Waits into a preacher-like role, a performance he fills with wails and stomps that send a fine, cement-like dust floating into a cloud around him and coating his black jeans.

Clearly Waits knows the value of performing songs, not just playing them. Later in the show he would joke about the "basic anatomy" needed for writing a song. In a live setting, these songs become animated creatures Waits teases, prods and kicks 'til they do his bidding.

Spaces between songs become elements of the performance too, giving Waits the chance to banter with and tease the audience. At one point he announces, "I love you individually and as a group." It's this kind of ongoing reference to the crowd that makes the largish Hummingbird seem like a tiny, intimate cabaret — a perfect setting for the first ballad, "Hold On" from his 1999 album, Mule Variations.

Following that, Waits becomes the manager-narrator who meets and counsels the freakish phenomenon known as "The Eyeball Kid." He intros the song with a story of how the eyeball-boy, sitting in a jar of vaseline, decides to roll away to see the world. With the first shout of "Hail, Hail the Eyeball Kid..." Waits puts on a hat with metallic reflectors that catch the light and send bright beams out from his head as if his skull is exploding in illumination.

The end of this song boldly marks a shift in the program. Indeed Waits is in complete control as an old standup piano is wheeled to centre-right stage to surging applause. He answers: "Welcome to mid-program," before plunking down a version of "Tango 'Til They're Sore," another Rain Dogs cut.

At the piano, his voice smoothens a little and his back heaves and contorts. He sits at a twisted angle on his ratty stool so he can face the audience, asking at one point: "Do ya wanna hear something old or something new?" before jovially dismissing calls for old songs, including "Martha" from his 1973 debut, Closing Time. (The evening's repertoire culls cuts from 1983's Swordfishtrombones — including the ultra-cool "Shore Leave" — and up, as well as some unreleased stuff and "Walk Away" from the Dead Man Walking soundtrack thrown in.)

Not surprisingly, Waits chooses new. "Picture in a Frame" touches the heart of each spectator. But the ringleader knows not to dwell in sentimentality for too long. As on his albums, Waits knows when to skip from the melancholy to the bizarre. So, he follows with one of the evening's surprising high points, "The Ocean Doesn't Want Me," a spooky spoken word piece from Bone Machine.

Waits prefaces this song by pointing to a need for something "moody and twisted." As he starts playing he whispers, "Oh yeah, those are some sick little notes." He adds a whimsical verse onstage, referring to "...the lifeguard on the podium and me in all this sodium."

Leading up to the first encore, Waits captures and enraptures his audience, conducting them in a singalong on "Innocent When You Dream" from 1987's Frank's Wild Years, before shaking them by the collars with a raucous "Philipino Box Spring Hog."

Waits walks off and returns three times for a tireless series of encores. The vibe swings from the contemplative "Time," when Waits plays a stirring guitar, to the cocky word play of "Big in Japan."

As if he wanted to leave the audience with something to really remember him by, Waits closes the show with "Take it With Me," another piano reflection from Mule Variations. This selection provides the night's moment of vulnerability, a look inside this weathered though obviously contented soul. In this moment, the performer takes off all masks and costumes.

Some may have been disappointed by the lack of material from the 1970's. While the costume for that ol' barroom bawler collects dust in some trunk, the strength of material from Waits' last two albums and the scattering of 80's releases is diverse enough to carry this two-hour-plus show. Indeed, the uncle can tell his young nephews, like Rufus Wainwright or Beck, a thing or two about showbiz.

After "Take It..." dies quietly at Waits' fingertips, our beloved but loopy uncle moves offstage slowly, stopping to shake many hands and accept a bouquet of flowers. He's smiling easily and so is everyone who listened to him.