Here’s a nice story from Janice Strickland on the
Raindogs Mailing List about attending the Waits’
performance on the David Letterman show:
Thanks to my boyfriend’s knowledge of David Letterman
trivia, I was lucky enough to be in the audience for
Tom Waits’ performance on the Late Show yesterday.
We were told to arrive at the theater between three
and four for tickets. There followed a lengthy
process of showing ID, waiting, receiving tickets,
waiting, lining up, and waiting some more. It was
raining continuously throughout, but people were
surprisingly upbeat in spite of the dampness and
delays.
We were herded into the Roseland Ballroom to visit
the restrooms (no slipping out during the show!) and
to receive instruction in How to be a Good Audience
Member. A Good Audience Member LAUGHS and APPLAUDS!
All the time! At whatever Dave says! Even if it’s not
funny. (However, a Good Audience Member never, ever
screams, “Whoooo!” as this overloads the sensitive
mics.) One by one, a team of frantically cheerful
young people stood before us and emphasized how
vitally important it was to the evening’s success
that we LAUGH and APPLAUD. After the third or fourth
lecture on laughter and applause, I began to wonder
whether Dave flogs his interns when they fail to meet
laughter and applause quotas. I realize that with a
live show you have to prime the pump and get the
audience in a receptive mood, but this seems like a
rather backward way to do it. If you want me to
appear entertained, how about doing something to
entertain me, rather than crowding me into a hot room
with 400 damp people and exhorting me to “LAUGH and
APPLAUD, for the love of God!”
When the audience was fully versed in their duties,
we were finally allowed into the theater. I was
surprised at how similar watching the show live is to
watching it on TV. I expected the taping to be
considerably longer than the broadcast, with the
extra material edited later. But aside from excising
a mistake and compressing about a minute of dead
time, the show we saw was pretty much the show that
was broadcast later that night. Aside from Tom, the
show was about average; not the funniest I’ve seen,
but fairly entertaining. But Tom was my real reason
for being there, and seeing him live for the first
time is something I’ll never forget.
I was totally unprepared for how arresting he is in
person. Physically he’s smaller and slighter than I
expected, but when he sang he commanded the room like
nothing I’ve ever seen before. It gave me chills; one
minute there’s the genial guy joking with Dave about
his kids’ homework and cribbing horses, and the next
minute there’s this shaman calling down the heavens
and holding us all transfixed. I watched the show
later on TV, and although it was great to see it
again, it was nothing compared to that heart stopping
live moment.
Just love “Make It Rain.” I’d already heard “Day
After Tomorrow” and was really hoping he would play
something different. If MIR is typical of the new
album, I may have a companion piece for Mule
Variations. MV is my go-to album – no matter what
mood I’m in, it’s the one CD I always feel like
listening to.ReplyBack to forum
