Joshua Thorin Messer

It is extremely difficult to be coherent at this point. I have just seen Tom Waits perform live for the first time in my life. I feel giddy and reckless. I feel like the rest of life will be dull, harsh, and meaningless. I feel like Phoenix (or Penix, as Renee in 12-year-old-boy mode keeps calling it to much merriment from us both) in not-quite-summer is a brutal mistake that is only made bearable by Tom. I feel like the most outrageous hyperbolic language barely touches the perfection of the event.

Is it wrong for a grown man to weep uncontrollably when a musical act takes the stage?

Tom’s arrangement of tunes I know and love for this show are nothing less than stunning. He’s found some sort of demon-savant woodwind player (Vincent Henry) and rode that train right to heaven. There’s a mood to some of the musical moments that Tom constructed that I can only describe as “Moroccan Carnival”. Rain Dogs with a haunting soprano sax interlude was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. It was, all by itself, the top 10 most beautiful things I’ve ever hear.

At one point I realized that time was passing far, far too quickly and that this moment, each moment of the show, was ephemeral like all the best things. I wanted to slow my perception of everything down so I could savor each note, each passage, each playful twirl of melody as the band passed it around.

And then Tom opened the gate to Chinatown and I thought I’d gone completely fucking mad. He had this…hat. There’s no word for it. Nothing could prepare a person for this crazed device. No one can see this hat and remain sane.

Tom Waits donned a mirrored bowler and turned himself into a slowly rotating disco ball. How can a person go back out into the real world after seeing such a thing? How could someone eat food, drive a car, go to work and sit there like anything made sense?

Set List:

• Lucinda
• Hoist That Rag
• Come On Up To The House
• Jesus Gonna Be Here
• November
• Black Market Baby
• Raindogs
• Trampled Rose
• Goin Out West
• Murder In The Red Barn
• Anywhere I Lay My Head
• Cemetery Polka
• Get Behind The Mule
• Eyeball Kid
• Tom at the piano:
  • 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

encores

• Way Down in the Hole
• God’s Away On Business
• Time