August 26, 1999 by A.S. Van Dorston

“Tom Waits, sucessful musician, movie star, and film composer, Tom Waits has never had a commercial hit; some of his songs are best-known for being covered by other people. He has a huge fan base, but doesn’t tour. His razor-sharp wit and lyrical prowess have put him in a category by himself. Just what that category is remains unclear. He has an obsession with shoes. When he took his son to Graceland, the tot suggested to a gift shop full of tourists that they dig up the King and make a necklace out of his teeth. His dad seemed pleased.”
— Bio

Tom Waits performed the first of two shows last night at the Chicago Theatre from 8:00 to 11:00. It was easily the best show of the year. While I’ve been a huge fan of Tom since Swordfishtrombones blew my mind in junior high with that Troutmaskreplica (Captain Beefheart) deja vu, this is the first time I’ve seen him live. His performances are about as common as Haley’s Comet — his last Chicago appearance that I’m aware of was his series of performances of his musical play Frank’s Wild Years at the Steppenwolf in 1987 . . . when some of you punks were still toilet training.

Tom came onstage wearing his standard uniform of an updated 1920s hobo suit and hat. As he began singing, his movements were dramatic and exaggerated, almost cartoon-like. Especially because of his hands. My god, those hands. I have never seen such a large pair of hands on a human being shorter than 7 feet tall. He used them to punctuate his phrasing, magnificent slabs of meat flopping and twitching about like hungry crabs. His body language and facial features strongly resembled Captain Beefheart from what I’ve seen in video footage of his last performances in the early 80s. While Waits shares some of Mr. Van Vliet’s looks, voice and music, Beefheart was at his core a cranky, tortured artist. Waits can be as bleak as the best of them, but in the end his music exudes hope and warm fuzzies, reflecting his content home life in rural California with playwrite/co-songwriter/wife Kathleen Brennan and his kids.

Rumor had it that Waits insisted on recording the bulk of Mule Variations in an uninsulated shed with a dirt floor, with band members complaining about stepping in chicken poo. Indeed, his desire for real earth beneath his feet is in tune with the music’s rhythms of junkyards, and crunching dead leaves and brittle bones. A small wooden platform was added to the stage with a layer of dirt, so that when Tom would stomp his feet, the hollow wooden sound was amplified to supplement his seemingly quadruple-limbed percussionist, and clouds of dust billowed up. Occasionally he would pick up a megaphone and whack it a few times to get the dust out of it. Waits is a firm believer in giving his fans complete entertainment, including tall tales of his youth, jokes, witty comebacks to audience banter, pimp struts, and other carnivelesque tricks such as putting on a hat during an extended instrumental breakdown that had tiny mirrors which reflected beams of light throughout the theater for the world’s most cost-efficient, yet beautiful, light show. And those hands, absent-mindedly performing surrealistic puppet shows.

People often shouted requests and he teased them, complaining the songs were too old, and he’s too old to remember them. But then he would surprise us with a song from his 1973 debut, Closing Time. In fact, the show featured some of the best songs from nearly all of his 15 album ouvre. I just sat there with a shit-eating grin plastered on my face, basking in the flood of memories each song kicked up like the dust under Tom’s boots. Here’s hoping his domestic bliss doesn’t keep him away for another decade.

Well the moon is broken
And the sky is cracked
Come on up to the house
The only things that you can see
Is all that you lack
Come on up to the house

All your cryin don’t do no good
Come on up to the house
Well come down off the cross
We can use the wood
Come on up to the house

Come on up to the house
Come on up to the house
The world is not my home
I’m just a passin thru
Come on up to the house

There’s no light in the tunnel
No irons in the fire
Come on up to the house
And you’re singin lead soprano
In the junkman’s choir
You gotta come on up to the house

Does life seem nasty, brutish and short
Come on up to the house
The seas are stormy
And you can’t find no port
Come on up to the house

There’s nothing in the world
That you can do
You gotta come on up to the house
And you been whipped by the forces
That are inside you
Come on up to the house
Well you’re high on top
Of your mountain of woe
Come on up to the house
Well you know you should surrender
But you can’t let go
You gotta come on up to the house