08-10-2006, 12:35 PM
11pm show??? Awesome. The Witching Hour with your host.... Mr. Tom Waits!
For the record, the best show i've ever seen in my lifetime was Tom Waits at the Orpheum in Vancouver on October 18 (?) of 1999. The show obviously had sold out in no time when the tickets went on sale months earlier, but on the day of the show, there were people lined up early (10am) for any last minute releases. When I was done work I dropped by the theatre just to check out the pre-show vibe for a Tom Waits concert. But as I got to the line up of people waiting for tickets a bunch of people bailed and the group I was talking with ended up being very close to the front of the line.
Turns out most of the line up were scalpers who left once they found out that the tickets that were about to be released required actually going into the theatre and therefore couldn't be resold outside. So I ended up getting a "limited view" seat for $80, which was crazy expensive at the time but unfortunately now seems to be the going rate for concerts (TOOL anyone?).
Regardless of the limited view, I was just ecstatic to be at a Tom Waits show. I'm not a diehard Tom Waits fan with every record in my collection, but the "Bone Machine + Mule Variations" combo is such an incredible pair of strange sounds and melodies that at that particular time, he was at the top of the list for me. And I wasn't the only one excited to be there of course. A lady I was talking to said she had a list of performers that she needed to see in her lifetime and the two left on the list were Lou Reed and Tom Waits. I thought that was cool. To my surprise, I even ran into my old baseball coach, who I had no idea was a Tom Waits fan and who had no idea that I was a Tom Waits fan (which is too bad, as I probably could've milked a few more innings out of him had I known of this interest).
I was even more surprised when the usher led me to my seat, which ended up being four rows back from the stage! It was "limited view" because the speaker was blocking the guitarist, but Waits was in clear view. I was shocked - SHOCKED! - and had to ask the usher again if this was actually the seat. Turns out that it was, and while talking to the guy next to me, he showed me the time of purchase on his ticket which was around 10 minutes after they had originally gone on sale through Ticketbastard. He said that in that 10 minutes, the only pair of seats available were way up in the balcony, and since his wife wasn't a Tom Waits fan, he said screw it and bought the single ticket instead.
Anyhow, the show was incredible, with Waits entering the theatre throwing confetti and blaring on a trumpet, showman that he is. It included "What's he building in there?", "Picture in a Frame", as well as a funny rant about "Angry Flowers". The recording of the show was made available briefly on CBC radio, I believe. I only have part of it so if anyone knows where to get the whole thing, I'd obviously be very interested.
I don't think it's possible to leave a Tom Waits show without feeling uplifted somehow. Maybe ticket prices put a damper on these things nowadays, but when I got home that night to find out that the Yankees had beaten the Sox to knock them out of the playoffs, as a huge Sox fan, it didn't even phase me.
After all, it was Tom Frickin' Waits!
Have fun at the show. It won't disappoint, I'm sure.
-jf
For the record, the best show i've ever seen in my lifetime was Tom Waits at the Orpheum in Vancouver on October 18 (?) of 1999. The show obviously had sold out in no time when the tickets went on sale months earlier, but on the day of the show, there were people lined up early (10am) for any last minute releases. When I was done work I dropped by the theatre just to check out the pre-show vibe for a Tom Waits concert. But as I got to the line up of people waiting for tickets a bunch of people bailed and the group I was talking with ended up being very close to the front of the line.
Turns out most of the line up were scalpers who left once they found out that the tickets that were about to be released required actually going into the theatre and therefore couldn't be resold outside. So I ended up getting a "limited view" seat for $80, which was crazy expensive at the time but unfortunately now seems to be the going rate for concerts (TOOL anyone?).
Regardless of the limited view, I was just ecstatic to be at a Tom Waits show. I'm not a diehard Tom Waits fan with every record in my collection, but the "Bone Machine + Mule Variations" combo is such an incredible pair of strange sounds and melodies that at that particular time, he was at the top of the list for me. And I wasn't the only one excited to be there of course. A lady I was talking to said she had a list of performers that she needed to see in her lifetime and the two left on the list were Lou Reed and Tom Waits. I thought that was cool. To my surprise, I even ran into my old baseball coach, who I had no idea was a Tom Waits fan and who had no idea that I was a Tom Waits fan (which is too bad, as I probably could've milked a few more innings out of him had I known of this interest).
I was even more surprised when the usher led me to my seat, which ended up being four rows back from the stage! It was "limited view" because the speaker was blocking the guitarist, but Waits was in clear view. I was shocked - SHOCKED! - and had to ask the usher again if this was actually the seat. Turns out that it was, and while talking to the guy next to me, he showed me the time of purchase on his ticket which was around 10 minutes after they had originally gone on sale through Ticketbastard. He said that in that 10 minutes, the only pair of seats available were way up in the balcony, and since his wife wasn't a Tom Waits fan, he said screw it and bought the single ticket instead.
Anyhow, the show was incredible, with Waits entering the theatre throwing confetti and blaring on a trumpet, showman that he is. It included "What's he building in there?", "Picture in a Frame", as well as a funny rant about "Angry Flowers". The recording of the show was made available briefly on CBC radio, I believe. I only have part of it so if anyone knows where to get the whole thing, I'd obviously be very interested.
I don't think it's possible to leave a Tom Waits show without feeling uplifted somehow. Maybe ticket prices put a damper on these things nowadays, but when I got home that night to find out that the Yankees had beaten the Sox to knock them out of the playoffs, as a huge Sox fan, it didn't even phase me.
After all, it was Tom Frickin' Waits!
Have fun at the show. It won't disappoint, I'm sure.
-jf