Hats and Tats. Tom Waits in Houston

About two months ago I learned that Tom Waits was coming to Houston. I was excited about this, until I realized that he would be here the day after we get back from Rome. So I didn’t really think about it until the day the tickets went on sale. Then I took a desultory look at what was available (they were sold out in two hours) and sort of gave up.

But my sweet ever loving wife called, and when she looked at the tickets, there were two seats available in row J of the orchestra. Nine rows back! (for some reason there is no row “I”)

In order to buy tickets you HAD to go through Ticketmaster, a company I generally abhor. But they were trying to foil scalpers and I think that they did a pretty good job. You could only buy two tickets at a time, and you received NO paper ticket of any kind. You had to present the credit card you used for the purchase, along with a photo ID.

So Doreen bough the tickets, and we pretty much forgot about the concert until we got home.

I was in Rome for two weeks, and Doreen was there for one. So we had reset our body clocks fully. We got home Saturday evening about 7:00, and the concert started at 8:30 PM on Sunday. I slept well enough Saturday night, getting up at about 5:00. Doreen didn’t sleep as well, but she seemed rested enough throughout the day.

We each had a nap on Sunday afternoon in preparation for the concert. Mine was short, about 20 minutes. Doreen slept longer.

We tried to meet a friend for dinner, but we didn’t hook up due to my not searching the restaurant well enough. No matter. As we were eating, we were speculating who was doing what downtown (there was also a play in town – it was about the making of the musical An American in Paris. It was supposed to be cute). We figured anyone wearing a porkpie hat or sporting tattoos (hence the title of this entry – hats and tats) was heading to Waits. Anyone in a frilly pale skirt was going to The Alley.

As we got closer to the venue, there were more hats and more tats. It was also apparent that the average age of the patrons was probably under 30. (unlike the Springsteen convert we attended, where the average age seemed to be 55) I attribute that to two things – the universal appeal of Tom and the No Scaplers thing. Think about it – how many 28 year olds will be willing to part with $500 to see anyone perform? Oldsters don’t have that problem.

One freaky guy was dressed like, and looked like, Tom Waits 30 years ago. He kept looking at our buddy Patrick and winking. I am not sure what that was all about (except maybe that Patrick had his 17 year old daughter with him, and the wink was mis-aimed). But was sort of freaky to see a Tom Waits look alike at the concert.

The show finally started and it was everything we had hoped it would be (except I would have picked a different playlist). He came out in a black three piece suit and a bowler hat. The suit was soaked through by the end of the night, the hat stayed on almost the whole time. (Though during The Eyeball Kid he replaced it with a bowler decked out like a mirrored disco ball. He spun around like one, too)

He started the performance with his five piece band backing him up. About halfway through he moved to the piano with only a standup bass behind him. Then he went back to front the band for the last few numbers.

For a more complete review of the concert, the Houston Chronicle has a blog about it here.

The show lasted a good 2 ½ hours.

I have wanted to see Tom Waits perform for quite some time. I am glad that Doreen bought the tickets, even though I would have let them go. Having seen him, I would not have even known how much I was missing.