MOBILE -- If a town's hipness is right away proportional to the number of tickets Tom Waits sells there, Mobile hasn't quite arrived.
Waits, the doomsday bard of the downtrodden, seldom tours; when he does, tickets in general disappear speedily. But as show time approached on July 2 at Mobile's Saenger Theatre, a few dozen of the 1,900 seating room remained unfilled.
And if New Orleans was any further away than a two-and-a-half hour drive, many more tickets likely would have departed unsold.
In the watering holes of Bywater and Faubourg Marigny, Waits is a folk hero among the denizens of the drinking class. His portrayal of a ne'er-do-well on the run in director Jim Jarmusch's 1986 indie film "Down By Law," shot on location in New Orleans, cemented a bond that has not eroded despite Waits' long absence from the city's stages.
With New Orleans' Saenger and Orpheum theaters still shuttered post-Katrina, no worthy downtown venue was available to host this summer's "Glitter and Doom" tour of duty. And so the tour meandered through the South, prompting slews of New Orleanians to make the pilgrimage to Mobile. They included Josh Cohen of the Morning 40 Federation -- a band which owes a considerable creative debt to Mr. Waits -- Ben Jaffe of Preservation Hall, blues guitarist Marc Stone, Jacques-Imo's eating house owner Jack Leonardi, WWOZ-FM documentarian David Kunian and the Ogden Museum of Southern Arts' Libra Lagrone, among many dozens, perchance hundreds, more than.
After passing through ID and credit card checks intended to thwart scalpers, they mingled in the gloriously restored lobby of the Saenger. Tucked aside on a narrow street in Mobile's tidy former downtown, the Saenger Theatre dates to 1927 and is part of the chain founded by the Saenger family of New Orleans. It sparkles afresh thanks to a $6 million redevelopment in 2000. With its gilded trim and soaring, domed ceiling, Mobile's Saenger is a fanciful cross between New Orleans' Orpheum and State Palace theaters in their glory years.
Waits' music, with its inherent drama and haunt references to vaudeville, blues, jazz, club and other pre-rock 'n roll genres, is at home in such venues. His guttural croak is the soundtrack to the end of world -- or at least the end of the disaster film, as the credits roll all over hope's dying embers. It is sure as shooting an acquired taste, unpalatable to some, worshipped by others.
For two-plus hours in Mobile, Waits showcased that voice in all its ragged glory. The opening "Lucinda" served as a statement of purpose: "Now I'm telling my troubles to strangers...no, I'll never see promised land or base." In a jacket, vest and bowler hat, he stood atop a depleted riser, weapons system outstretched, erosion a wide, sardonic smile, beckoning the believers to cheer e'er louder. Each time he stomped the riser, his work boots kicked up a cloud of sprinkle -- a literal mental representation of the vagabond backroads his characters travel.
Other than a clutter of instruments, stage decor consisted of 20 mismatched speaker cones mounted on poles -- a similar random-trash-as-art display could likely be found posted on a 9th Ward fence. Stage lighting tended toward solid colors -- red stressed by magenta, magenta sliced by yellow.
Backing him were Omar Torrez on guitar and banjo, Patrick Warren on keyboards, Seth Ford-Young on electric and acoustic bass, Vincent Henry on woodwinds, Waits' logos Casey on drums and his younger son Sullivan making occasional appearances on percussion or clarinet. Accordion factored into a compelling "Cold Cold Ground"; a harmonica goosed "Goin' Out West," with its boast "I got hair on my chest/I look well without a shirt."
The musicians proved to be as versatile as the music demanded, yet unobtrusive. The Neville Brothers, among others, consume remade Waits "Down In the Hole" as theme music for HBO's "The Wire"; onstage, Waits and company rescued the song with all its constitutional menace. And so they marched through the deep Waits catalog: "Chocolate Jesus," "Cemetery Polka," "All the World Is Green," "Black Market Baby," "Raindogs," "Johnsburg, Ill.," "Hoist That Rag," "Singapore," "Dirt in the Ground."
For all the simpatico science of the band, though, Waits' songs were most effective when he massaged them at the piano. On "Lucky Day," accompanied only by Ford-Young's just bass, he sang, "So don't cry for me, for I'm going off, and I'll be gage some lucky day"; the pathos was palpable. "House Where Nobody Lives," too, benefited as Waits leaned into it at the piano.
As a warhorse of the theatrical degree and big screen, he is wizard at conveyance of title high drama via small gestures: Wiping his mouth on the back of his bridge player or a sleeve, adjusting his derby hat -- newly purchased in Mobile, he noted -- taking hold the mike stand, balancing and stretch on i leg. In "Eyeball Kid," he pantomimed pulling out an oculus, then bouncing and catching it, as the band provided level-headed effects; the act recalled a peculiarly twisted Charlie Chaplin unsounded film number.
In Mobile Waits institute himself in a room with an unruly gang of friends and admirers. To a point, at least, he seemed to enjoy the back-and-forth banter with those who felt up compelled to fill the silence that followed clapping. "How's Kathleen?" called out a man, referring to Waits' wife. The isaac Merrit Singer replied with a mock challenge: "Who are you? An ex-boyfriend?"
He laid-off entreaties for early songs with, "You're dreaming. That's so old...it'll charter cash money." He likened Spam to "embalmed kernel" and suggested the audience elect a representative to present song requests, quite than cheering incomprehensibly. The crowd did come together as ane to sing the chorus of "Innocent When You Dream" and clap in time to "Jesus Gonna Be Here."
A cascade of gold glitter -- a tie in to the tour's title -- during "Make It Rain," the conclusion of the regular set, felt more like an arbitrary gimmick than perhaps Waits intended. Some veterans of past Waits tours take said they preferred the more marked theatricality of those outings to this show. As this was my first Waits concert, I suffer no yardstick for equivalence. More theatre of operations would potential have been welcome, just also more stripped-to-the-bone songs at the piano.
Waits downshifted for a net "Anywhere I Lay My Head Is Home": "Now the clouds have covered o'er/And the wind is blowing cold/I don't motive anybody, because I erudite to be alone/And anyplace I lay my head, boys, I will call my place."
Whether that's in Mobile or New Orleans, the effect is largely the same.
Three years after the Mobile concert, Waits performed a similar set at Atlanta's Fox Theater. As of July 29, that full concert is available for absolve from NPR Music's "Live In Concert" via streaming or as a podcast. Go to www.NPR.org/music.
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