Live albums are a tricky proposition for any artist. No matter how dynamic or fiery the band was, there’s always that essential disconnect: you aren’t there, drinking in the atmosphere of the venue and feeling the power of a full PA blast in your sternum.
Few are the live albums that capture the lightning in a bottle and lets the energy seep out of the speakers, especially when they’ve been cleaned up in post-production with overdubs and edits. The ones that do put that live show crackle in your spine are worth revisiting on a regular basis, including this fine tour document by Tom Waits.
This two-disc set captures the titular tour that Waits undertook in the summer of 2008, hitting only a handful of cities in the Southwest and Southern U.S., as well as a few stops in Europe for good measure. The 17 tracks on disc one cherry pick the best songs from these performances, leaning heavily on the mechanical sound that has marked so much of his work for the past decade.
Although you miss the visual dynamic of watching the spindly Waits bend and twist himself into his songs, what you do get is the watery rasp of his well-worn singing voice and the sharp playing of his backing band (a group that features his son Casey on drums and the great guitarist Omar Torrez). Together, they charmingly deflate some of his well-known material (”Singapore”, “Goin’ Out West”) and ratchet up the tension of tracks from his last few albums. It can be a delicate balancing act, but Waits and his nimble band manage to stay aloft the whole way through.