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Brisbane Powerhouse Sat Oct 13
If the songs of Tom Waits are powerful enough to survive being covered by the Ramones, the Eagles and, for God’s sake, Rod Stewart, then they can easily withstand anything cabaret can throw at them. Tom Waits For No Man are back by popular demand to prove it tonight.
Opening with a sea chanty for the damned, Singapore, they effortlessly move through songs from Waits’ many styles, whether beatnik jazz, hobo gospel, junkyard rock or suicide’s lullaby. The four singers provide smoother and better-enunciated versions of his songs, but that’s only to be expected. Not everyone sings with a voice as heroically ragged as Waits or can afford to spend a couple of decades coating their vocal cords with whiskey to achieve it. Two guys and two girls provide different versions of the songs, some reinterpreted and others accurate right down to the pauses in the scat that seem to say, “Should I zippety or zaggedy next?” Step Right Up is rendered in its typical street-corner hustler’s style and Kentucky Avenue becomes a soulful ballad to give you chills – especially when its list of things the child narrator would like to do with his friend hits, “I’ll take the spokes from your wheelchair and a magpie’s wings / and I’ll tie ‘em to your shoulders and your feet / I’ll steal a hacksaw from my dad and cut the braces off your legs / and we’ll bury them tonight out in the cornfield.” The band switch around through piano, accordion, drums, cello, trumpet and bass as suits the song. Although they lack a trash can and a random assortment of pipes to hit things with, otherwise they’re spot on – the guitar solo of Black Market Baby sounds perfect in its plinky discordance. An especially well-lubed version of The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me) is hysterical, getting plenty of laughs from the lushes in attendance. Several members of the crowd have come as typically Waitsian characters, gypsy hacks and insomniacs in hats and vagrant’s jackets. They don’t seem to mind one bit when one of the singers walks among the tables taking sips until she finally finds someone drinking a nice white wine that agrees with her. Meanwhile, Altar Boy is being done in a style bordering on boy-burlesque and Heartattack And Vine is given an ecstatic and boozy solo tap dance. Plenty of the patter between songs is taken directly from the rambling of Waits himself and the spoken-word lullaby for parents who hate their kids, Children’s Story, is performed straight without musical accompaniment. They finish with a version of Time that honestly puts the Tori Amos cover to shame, and it takes only a little foot-stomping and applause to drag them out for an encore. They attack the hillbilly singalong Come On Up To The House with verve and vigour. When they depart the stage again it’s hard to believe they were up there for an hour and a half. The time, and the Tom, flew by. JODY MACGREGOR
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