Tom Waits - Glitter And Doom Live

I'm going to break one of my rules. I don't normally fill my pages here with live albums or reissues or compilations. It's too easy to rave over what you obviously already liked when you started. They generally already include your favorite songs. I'm making the exception here, because, well... for several reasons.

1.) It's late November. People don't release new albums this time of year. That's because the record buying public is only buying the compilations and reissues and packages for Christmas gifts. 2.) Tom Waits is awesome, is awesome live, and I'm really excited to get to this. and... 3.) I'm on it. (I was at the Columbus show).

The album was recorded over his entire Glitter And Doom tour, which was just a random collection of shows that he made well after his latest release, which was a rarities compilation. The set-lists varied a bit, but not too much from show to show. What is included here is a collection of songs from the latest part of his career, all since his last live album in 1986.

Waits parts his time between the two vocal styles that he's used in this part of his career. The cool cat jazz whisperer and the gruff drunk howl. It is a live effort and time has passed, so I certainly wouldn't expect Tom to display the dynamics that he had, but I'm still questioning why he chose to use the gruff style here for a couple songs that was whispy on the studio version.

A highlight is "Falling Down", a favorite of mine which was recently covered quite blandly by Scarlett Johansson. The version here replaces the Northern-Isle folk gospel feel for something more '60s blues, trading the horns for piano. "Make It Rain" absolutely rocks. It's a more desperate "I Put A Spell On You", with Tom's son hitting the shit out of his drums.

The closer, "Lucky Day" is a divine ending to the story, a train-yard scream-along that is re-done here as a beautiful funeral ballad. The 2nd disc compiles some funny stories that Tom told between some songs. And that's fine, but I wouldn't have minded seeing more of that to break up the show on disc one. (3.5 of 5 stars)

Falling Down (Paris - 07/25/08...