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Rating: Disclaimer: this is not the official live double CD, with a similar but not identical title, already on sale at the best record stores (if any, in my town there isn't a single one left) but an "expanded and corrected" bootleg version, of excellent audio quality, documenting the entire concert at Atlanta’s Fox Theater during the "Glitter And Doom" tour, available—you can imagine where. Clearly, the version available in stores is much better, and I recommend everyone to purchase that version. The voice is the same...
I have a "special" relationship with Tom Waits.
Years ago, when I was listening to one of his albums, I called my daughter over and said:
"Honey, do you hear this gentleman singing?"
"Yes, dad. The one that sounds like an ogre?"
"Yes. Well, this gentleman is kind of your real father.
Actually no, let's say he's your grandfather.
I want to be your real father"
She was a bit baffled and worried, and ran to her mother.
In truth, I think I’ve already told this story to someone on DeBaser, but it goes more or less like this.
Years ago, around 1999, after several years of marriage, a child was needed to give meaning to it all.
However, there was a slight problem.
I smoked almost as many cigarettes a day as my current age.
And that wasn't a small number (the cigarettes then, as my age is now).
To avoid the risk of genetically passing on the smoking habit to an innocent creature, my wife insisted I stop right there (not the marriage, just the smoking habit).
How to do it?
Easy, a Tom CD bought every week (to which I had become interested in the meantime) with the money saved from cigarettes.
In short, within a few weeks, I had the complete discography... and in nine and a half months, a daughter.
Returning to the subject of the review, this seems to be the second time the man from Pomona decided to document his live performances, about twenty years after "Big Time" (not considering "Nighthawks at the Diner" a true live).
The tracks in this bootleg, in my opinion, reflect a particular and courageous choice for the tour concert setlist.
They are almost always relatively "secondary" tracks, absolutely not mainstream, as Waits' songs have never been.
Among these, not included in the official version of the live, is "November" (from "The Black Rider"), whose gothic and noir spirit is emphasized by the even huskier singing compared to the studio version.
There’s the "working" blues with Latin influences more than ever of "Hoist that Rag" (from "Real Gone")
Then there's "Cemetery Polka" (from "Rain Dogs"), the "mother" of "Marcia del Camposanto" by the Italian Waits, Vinicio Capossela.
The rendition is truly "in Tom Waits’ style" with coughs, talking, megaphone, ogre voices, and a Judge Morton-style shrill voice from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" (in his true guise), all together.
There’s an evocative "Innocent when You Dream" (I think this was the track I was listening to when I called my daughter..), sung with audience support, as if we were at a Renato Zero concert.
There’s "Dirt in the Ground", more blues-like and less brass-heavy than the original from "Bone Machine".
There are only two tracks from before the "Island revolution", "Til the Money Runs Out" and the sweet "On the Nickel" (both from "Heartattack and Vine").
And then there are some previously unreleased tracks (at least for me, I haven't researched too much, I might be wrong) of decent value, such as "All the World Is Green".
Accompanying him, among famous names, the most important is that of his son, Casey.
In short, more than the significance of the tracks and the musicians (too many precious pieces from "Rain Dogs", "Swordfishtrombones", and "Bone Machine" are really missing, at the concert I might have been a bit disappointed, and especially missing is Marc Ribot), it's always the voice and the crazy way he "plays" it that is the real added value.
Try, to believe, if ever starting from the end, the splendid "Anywhere I Lay My Head".
Recommended, after all.
Until next time.
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