Artist - Tom Waits
Album - Glitter and Doom Live
Label - Anti

There isn’t much chance that you have got to this point without making your mind up about Tom Waits. You’re either in the camp, or you’re not.

If you’re in the camp, you probably knew about the Glitter and Doom tour, a concert tour which took in some pretty small venues, avoided most US major cities, and with an innovative ticketing policy that meant only real fans, and really committed fans, got in to see the shows.

With a song selection that drew heavily on post Rain Dogs work, the shows were phenomenal, and fortunately they seem to have been recorded perfectly too. Selected from several of the shows, the 17-track disc 1 cuts out most of the banter, leaving it for an interesting Disc 2 – called Tom Tales, it stitches together the humorous monologues into one story.

If you’re still not a Tom Waits fan, there is a reasonable chance that this album’s raw passion, funk and blues power could just tilt you. It’s a great album that just happens to have been recorded live.

Rating 9/10
Mike Rea