Tom Waits - Teatro degli Arcimboldi, Milan Italy
A few months back I managed to book tickets to Tom Waits 'Glitter and Doom' tour as the show co-coincided with my birthday. Fairly impressively - given the ticketing site was entirely in Italian so I had to use translation service Babelfish to navigate my way through things - we managed to get front row seats!
So on a beautiful Saturday night in Milan we took a taxi across town to the Teatro degli Arcimboldi, built in the abandoned Pirelli tire factory, in an area known as Bicocca.
To avoid scalping tickets could only be collected on the day with a photo ID, so we got to the theatre a few hours early and collected our tickets without any troubles. At this stage most of the 2000 crowd was also at the theater - lending the night a carnival-like atmosphere with people drinking and eating in the courtyard and street outside the theater - there was also a street market setup where half a dozen different vendors selling bootleg t-shirts displayed their wares and tried to steal each others customers.
When the theatre opened we found our seats and waited for the show to start. The stage set-up was fairly impressive. At centre-stage a slightly raised section shaped like a large bass drum lying on it's side, strewn with Egypitian hiragliphics around the edges, and a boxing ring bell attached to the side. High above the stage, mutil-coloured speakers hung from towers.
I've loved Tom Waits and his music for well over a decade, but in that time he's rarely toured and never toured Australia (his last Australian tour was 1978 and according to reports, he was treated so poorly and had such a miserable time that he vowed never to return).
So at around 9:30 when the houselights went down and the crowd erupted - i was filled with both excitement and trepidation. Would he live up to his showman expectations? Would we only hear songs from the latest albums, or would he delve into his illustrious back catalog? Fortunately the answers were a resounding yes, no, and yes!
In fact, tonight's show was without a doubt one of the best concerts I've ever seen. Waits is such a showman, not only musically but injecting a good dose of the theatrical into things as well - that it's made me reevaluate some of my previous favorite concerts and I came up feeling slightly short-changed.
Tom looks great for his 58 years - sprightly and stylish dressed in dark boots and jeans, a brown shirt, waitscoat, jacket, and bowlers cap. Lit from above - he looks incredibly foreboding as he launches the five-piece band into a mash-up of two songs from his 'Orphans' boxset: the verses from "Lucinda" coupled with the choruses of "Aint' Going Down To The Well No More".It turns out the raised section of the stage has a sprung floor - so as Tom stomps, dust and smoke is thrown into the air; and if he stomps hard enough - the boxing bell chimes!
Next up is one of my favorite Tom Waits songs "Way Down In The Hole" - a clear favorite with the crowd and known to many as the theme-song to seminal TV show 'The Wire'.
Next up was "I'll Shoot The Moon" from 'The Black Rider', which is not an album I listen to a lot but I'll be certainly going back to after tonight as it sounded like just a great love song.
Tom's showmanship was first-rate, including a few between song monlogues when he took to the piano - with one great story about the Lost Baggage Centre outside Milan that Tom had intended to vist... until they lost his luggage. Ironico! At one stage he replaced his regular hat with one covered in reflective tiles - so he performed as a human mirror ball. And in the main-set closing "Make It Rain" Tom was rained on from golden confetti - preumably the "glitter" in the Glitter and Doom tour.
Tom's band was universally excellent : Omar Torrez doing a great job filling some historically big shoes (Marc Ribot) on guitars, Patrick Warren - keyboards, Vincent Henry was incredible on a variety of wind instruments - seemingly playing two saxophones simultaneously at one point, Seth Ford-Young was great on upright bass, while Tom's oldest son Casey did a good job on drums and percussion, we even got a couple of guest appearanes from Tom's youngest son Sullivan assisting on conga drums and carinet on a couple of different songs.
I'm gushing at this point but there are literally too many highlights for me to call out everything - but hearing songs from his most recent original album 'Blood Money' ("All The World Is Green" and "God's Away On Business") live was fantastic.
I also got to hear a great selection of my all time favorites: "Cold Cold Ground" was riveting, "Jesus gonna be here" was reworked into a more melodic arrangement, "Innocent When You Dream" was the big crowd sing-along for the night, and we got a good dose of material from 'Rain Dogs' - the album that first turned me onto Tom Waits: "Raindogs", "Jockey full of bourbon" and a brilliant "Hang down your head" in the encore, before closing with a blistering "Goin' Out West". Simply brilliant!
Full setlist:
Lucinda / Aint' Going Down To The Well No More
Way down in the hole
Fallin Down
All the world is green
I’ll shoot the moon
God’s away on business
Cold Cold Ground
Eyeball Kid
Jesus gonna be here
On the nickel
Tom Traubert’s blues
House where nobody lives
Innocent when you dream
Lie to me
Hoist that rag
Lost in the bottom of the world
Chocolate Jesus
Raindogs / Russian Dance
Dirt in the ground
Make it rain
encore:
Jockey full of bourbon
Hang down your head
Goin out west
PS. On a side note we also got to do a bit of celebrity spotting - seeing actress Tilda Swinton early on (and later at the cab rank) and actor Roberto Benigni (although I didn't see him myself there was photos of him at the show)
So on a beautiful Saturday night in Milan we took a taxi across town to the Teatro degli Arcimboldi, built in the abandoned Pirelli tire factory, in an area known as Bicocca.
To avoid scalping tickets could only be collected on the day with a photo ID, so we got to the theatre a few hours early and collected our tickets without any troubles. At this stage most of the 2000 crowd was also at the theater - lending the night a carnival-like atmosphere with people drinking and eating in the courtyard and street outside the theater - there was also a street market setup where half a dozen different vendors selling bootleg t-shirts displayed their wares and tried to steal each others customers.
When the theatre opened we found our seats and waited for the show to start. The stage set-up was fairly impressive. At centre-stage a slightly raised section shaped like a large bass drum lying on it's side, strewn with Egypitian hiragliphics around the edges, and a boxing ring bell attached to the side. High above the stage, mutil-coloured speakers hung from towers.
I've loved Tom Waits and his music for well over a decade, but in that time he's rarely toured and never toured Australia (his last Australian tour was 1978 and according to reports, he was treated so poorly and had such a miserable time that he vowed never to return).So at around 9:30 when the houselights went down and the crowd erupted - i was filled with both excitement and trepidation. Would he live up to his showman expectations? Would we only hear songs from the latest albums, or would he delve into his illustrious back catalog? Fortunately the answers were a resounding yes, no, and yes!
In fact, tonight's show was without a doubt one of the best concerts I've ever seen. Waits is such a showman, not only musically but injecting a good dose of the theatrical into things as well - that it's made me reevaluate some of my previous favorite concerts and I came up feeling slightly short-changed.
Tom looks great for his 58 years - sprightly and stylish dressed in dark boots and jeans, a brown shirt, waitscoat, jacket, and bowlers cap. Lit from above - he looks incredibly foreboding as he launches the five-piece band into a mash-up of two songs from his 'Orphans' boxset: the verses from "Lucinda" coupled with the choruses of "Aint' Going Down To The Well No More".It turns out the raised section of the stage has a sprung floor - so as Tom stomps, dust and smoke is thrown into the air; and if he stomps hard enough - the boxing bell chimes!Next up is one of my favorite Tom Waits songs "Way Down In The Hole" - a clear favorite with the crowd and known to many as the theme-song to seminal TV show 'The Wire'.
Next up was "I'll Shoot The Moon" from 'The Black Rider', which is not an album I listen to a lot but I'll be certainly going back to after tonight as it sounded like just a great love song.
Tom's showmanship was first-rate, including a few between song monlogues when he took to the piano - with one great story about the Lost Baggage Centre outside Milan that Tom had intended to vist... until they lost his luggage. Ironico! At one stage he replaced his regular hat with one covered in reflective tiles - so he performed as a human mirror ball. And in the main-set closing "Make It Rain" Tom was rained on from golden confetti - preumably the "glitter" in the Glitter and Doom tour.
Tom's band was universally excellent : Omar Torrez doing a great job filling some historically big shoes (Marc Ribot) on guitars, Patrick Warren - keyboards, Vincent Henry was incredible on a variety of wind instruments - seemingly playing two saxophones simultaneously at one point, Seth Ford-Young was great on upright bass, while Tom's oldest son Casey did a good job on drums and percussion, we even got a couple of guest appearanes from Tom's youngest son Sullivan assisting on conga drums and carinet on a couple of different songs.
I'm gushing at this point but there are literally too many highlights for me to call out everything - but hearing songs from his most recent original album 'Blood Money' ("All The World Is Green" and "God's Away On Business") live was fantastic.
I also got to hear a great selection of my all time favorites: "Cold Cold Ground" was riveting, "Jesus gonna be here" was reworked into a more melodic arrangement, "Innocent When You Dream" was the big crowd sing-along for the night, and we got a good dose of material from 'Rain Dogs' - the album that first turned me onto Tom Waits: "Raindogs", "Jockey full of bourbon" and a brilliant "Hang down your head" in the encore, before closing with a blistering "Goin' Out West". Simply brilliant!Full setlist:
Lucinda / Aint' Going Down To The Well No More
Way down in the hole
Fallin Down
All the world is green
I’ll shoot the moon
God’s away on business
Cold Cold Ground
Eyeball Kid
Jesus gonna be here
On the nickel
Tom Traubert’s blues
House where nobody lives
Innocent when you dream
Lie to me
Hoist that rag
Lost in the bottom of the world
Chocolate Jesus
Raindogs / Russian Dance
Dirt in the ground
Make it rain
encore:
Jockey full of bourbon
Hang down your head
Goin out west
PS. On a side note we also got to do a bit of celebrity spotting - seeing actress Tilda Swinton early on (and later at the cab rank) and actor Roberto Benigni (although I didn't see him myself there was photos of him at the show)
