Here's a break down of the previous two days in St. Louis:
Dinner at Houlihan's prior to the Tom Waits show: enchiladas, chicken, beer, rum and gin.
We get to the theater just in time to see the will call line wrapping around the side of the building: bowlers and newsboy hats galore. An interesting mix of hipster, punk, old and new. The line only took about 20 minutes, so Tom and I were able to chain smoke until we got to our (front-ish center balcony - I'm a great ticket buyer) just in time to wait for the rest of the line to take their seats so the show would begin.
Oh my goodness! He played my top 4 favorites (The Russian Dance - as an interlude in Rain Dogs - and Lucky Day from The Black Rider, Anywhere I Lay My Head from Rain Dogs and The Day After Tomorrow from Real Gone). I began tearing up during Lucinda (from Brawlers, Orphans), the song with which he opened. But the waterworks really started with The Day After Tomorrow. (A side note: liquid eyeliner DOES NOT RUN after it has been given ample amount of time to dry, but a girl has to be careful with her usage of mascara on the lower lashes).
One of my favorite parts of the show didn't have to do with Tom Waits, but rather our dear friend, Tom Funk. As Tom the former began playing Make It Rain (from Real Gone), Tom the latter shouted "this is for all the chicks in LA-fuck yea!" (by the way the opening line is "she took all my money, and my best friend" jaded much?) But this specific interaction with the audience to the performer is indicative of the entire show. Tom Waits has for most of the people in attendance at the Fabulous Fox Theatre in St Louis written the soundtracks to our lives. The man sitting in front of Tom the latter buried his face throughout the entire show, with his eyes peeping out of his barely parted fingertips...I feel you man, it was that fucking beautiful.
The lighting director did a fantastic job as well. Throughout the entire set, TW was the only cast member who threw a shadow, and the shadows that fell were circus-esque, gruesome and strangely elongated, just like the man himself.
Tom Wait's son played the drums as well as the man strings together unexpected imagery, the sax player played two saxes at the same time and the guitar player...oh, all I can say is spanishtastically amazing.
After the show, Tom the friend and I bought the obligatory t-shirts of oil stain prints Tom the idol himself took. We then took a cab back to JDay's where we proceeded henceforth to the sports bar up the street. 3 gin on the rocks later, I was pretty tuckered out, while JDay, the trooper, apparently had been drinking rum in our absence, and didn't let up apres the show. (Although he had a pretty tough time on Friday - thank you, dear friend, for not being the first person to puke in my car). The owner of the bar REALLY wanted us to stay, or something, so she was still talking in a husky low voice about drinking laws and bullshit as we ducked out at 1.30am.
One observation about that bar: if a male is to throw a wadded up piece of paper on the floor, the surgically enhanced bartender in a short pink dress will bend over to pick it up. Just to let you know.
Fun times had by all, until our livers ensured a killer hangover the next day. Well, the hangover fairy hit JDay first, and creeped up on me by the time we were to leave for KC. I'm not sure if Tom felt as bad as we did, probably not, since he pretty much stuck to beer while JDay and I rode the hard liquor train. (But it tastes so good....)
We did, though, hit the St. Louis Art Museum where I learned several things: Jesus could have possibly been a proctologist, people back in the day were short, the St. Louis Art Museum is seriously lacking in modern Spanish Art, Oppenheimer isn't just for nukes anymore, and Tom likes bookstores.
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