Tom Waits Gig Review - Dublin 3 Friday Night

After much talking, hoping and praying the Friday night gig eventually arrived. I had poor full-priced seats which meant I could only see half the stage - Tom, the sax, and the bongo's. Still I don't feel hard done by. As you know I'm a big fan so I'm always going to be biased. I thought the performance was fantastic definitely as good as I'd hoped if not better, even if he constantly spoke with a really annoying character voice. The sound was fairly poor, there seemed only to be speakers at the edge of the stage so it was always mono, and form where I sat always only from my right ear, but it was loud and I was there.

The event was well organised, there was no hassle of any sort (from what I saw), most of the staff wore suits which made a change form burly security men in neon safety jackets. It did have a theatre feel throughout the night.
I'm not old, but I felt there should have been an interval. People wanted to get more booze, the bar seemed to want to sell more booze, and there were allot of people heading to the toilets. It was nice that you were not allowed back to your seat until between songs (adding to the theatre vibe) but with an interval the show may have been better. Alternatively it would have been great to be able to stand for the gig, I'd have loved to have danced moved my body to some of the tunes.

After a the second encore, we were treated to what seemed like a unscheduled 2 further songs. After which Tom left the stage with a genuine smile on his face, be it the last night of the tour or the fact that he had gotten round after round of rapturous applause. The crowd wouldn't let up, there was a long pause where hopes seemed to raise that he may return for another (4th) encore but after a few minutes the signal was given. A man we hadn't seen before came on stage with a cordless drill in hand - amazing I though what can/will Tom do with that, but alas the pa started playing music and the house lights ruined my imagination and the man with a drill started to rip the set apart.

I slowly filled out into the dark rain filled night but I was left feeling whole. A few days later I'm still have that wholesome feeling.

The mirrorball hat clad rendition of Eyeball Kid, Tom Traubert's Blues, I'll shoot the moon, The Heart of Saturday, Lost in The Harbour night, The rainbow in the sky when My bladder decided to explode. It was worth every penny and then some.

More chatter on the gigs

And now some videos

Very short excerpt Eyeball Kid - Dublin 30.07.08


Eyeball Kid - Paris 24.07.08


I'll shoot the moon - Dublin 30.07.08