Tom Waits performs during his Glitter and Doom Tour at the Orpheum Theatre in Phoenix June 17, 2008.
Tom Waits put the "P" in "PEHDTSCHJMBA" on Tuesday night as he kicked off his Glitter and Doom Tour before a sold-out crowd at the Orpheum Theatre. It was the first Valley appearance in over 30 years from the eccentric singer-songwriter, who returns for a second show on Wednesday. And in case you were wondering, PEHDTSCHJMBA is an acronym of all the cities he is stopping at on this rare tour.
Waits, 58, even acknowledged how long it has been since his last visit, joking:
"Does Van Buren still have all those affordable hotels? That's the part of town I remember."
Otherwise he didn't dwell in the past too much during the two-hour show.
Describing the concert is difficult - the band, which included Waits' son Casey on drums, was loose and fluid while swapping instruments, handling the tricky time changes and even trickier stage cues from Waits.
But the center of attention was clearly Waits. Indeed at many points the show seemed less about the music than his outrageous acting. One of the most theatrical "singers" in rock music, he mugged and mimed his way through the songs, accentuating his tortured singing with the persona of a circus ringleader or a mad televangelist.
And with stage props. He performed much of the set standing on a wooden riser which was coated with some sort of powder. As he stomped his feet to the beat, clouds of dust would rise. During Eyeball Kid, from his 1999 comeback album The Mule Variations, he donned a bowler hat covered with mirrors, turning himself into a human disco ball. The stage set, a sort-of junkyard of antique loudspeakers, only accentuated the trash-can sound of the band and the apocalyptic feel of the show.
He also pushed his vocal cords to the limit, taking his voice from a whispered falsetto to a terrifying growl from one word to another. He even pulled out a bullhorn for his ode to the immaculate confection, Chocolate Jesus.
The bulk of the set was drawn from Waits' more recent albums, especially The Mule Variations. He did give longtime fans a special treat with mixed-up rearrangements of older songs, like the gospel rave-up Jesus Gonna Be Here, from the 1992 album Bone Machine, which was transformed into a funky shuffle, and Murder in the Red Barn, a blues number also from Bone Machine, that was given a jazzy twist.
The emotional highlight of the show, however, was when he dismissed the band and sat down at the piano for a handful of older tunes accompanied only by bassist Seth Ford Young. The mood turned conversational, with Waits joking with the hecklers in the crowd. His Bohemian-barfly persona returned as he delved deep into his catalog for such classics from the '70s as Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis and Invitation to the Blues. The mood was spoiled a little by a security guard, who was using his walkie-talkie during Christmas Card, but Waits quickly silenced him before leading the crowd in a singalong version of the stark, emotional Innocent When You Dream.
After the piano interlude ended, Waits strapped on a guitar for the rockabilly rave-up Lie to Me and the set closing stomper Make It Rain, from the 2004 album Real Gone.
He returned for a three-song encore that encapsulated the entire concert. Way Down in the Hole, from 1987's Frank's Wild Years, (and recently heard as the theme song for HBO's prison drama, The Wire) was performed as a full-fledged gospel rave-up. God's Away on Business, from the stage play soundtrack Blood Money was all German dancehall bluster, with Waits mugging and grinning through lyrics like "I'd sell your heart to the junkman baby for a buck, for a buck." And the tender ballad Time from Waits' 1985 masterpiece Rain Dogs, brought the show to an emotional close, with him coming as close to singing as he did at any point during the show, strumming gently on an acoustic guitar while crooning the chorus:
"It's time, time, time, that you love."
Odds are that Waits won't return to the Valley any time soon, so that echoing chorus will have to serve.
Unless you are lucky to have tickets for Wednesday's show.
Setlist:
• Lucinda
• Hoist That Rag
• Come on Up to the House
• Jesus Gonna Be Here
• November
• Black Market Baby
• Rain Dogs
• Trampled Rose
• Going Out West
• Murder in the Red Barn
• Cemetery Polka
• Anywhere I Lay My Head
• Get Behind the Mule
• Eyeball Kid
• 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
Encore:
• Way Down in the Hole
• God's Away on Business
• Time
