Glitter and Doom Live

Tom Waits | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 23, 2009)
• Original Release Date: 2009
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Anti
• ASIN: B002QJX33O
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,428 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Lucinda / Ain't Goin Down (Birmingham 07/03/08)

2. Singapore (Edinburgh 07/28/08)

3. Get Behind The Mule (Tulsa 06/25/08)

4. Fannin Street (Knoxville 06/29/08)

5. Dirt In The Ground (Milan 07/19/08)

6. Such A Scream (Milan 07/18/08)

7. Live Circus (Jacksonville 07/01/08)

8. Goin' Out West (Tulsa 06/25/08)

9. Falling Down (Paris 07/25/08)

10. The Part You Throw Away (Edinburgh 07/28/08)

See all 17 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Tom Tales 36:10

Editorial Reviews

2009 two CD live release housed in a six panel digipak. Glitter and Doom is a collection of the best of the best tracks from Tom Waits' highly acclaimed Glitter and Doom tour of the U.S. and Europe in the summer of 2008. Disc One is designed to sound like one evening's performance, even though the 17 tracks are selected from 10 cities. Sonically, the album has been beautifully recorded and meticulously mastered . Disc Two is a bonus compendium called Tom Tales, which is a selection of the comic bromides, strange musings, and unusual facts that Tom traditionally shares with his audience during the piano set. Waits' topics range from the ritual of insects to the last dying breath of Henry Ford.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Waits Live Again! Finally!!!, November 24, 2009

By 

G P Padillo "paolo" (Portland, ME United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Glitter and Doom Live (Audio CD)

This is easily Tom's best album in years. Doing what he does best, but too rarely - play live -his latest effort sparkles and pulses with a ferocity of life that leaps out of your sound system - and pulls you - screaming or willingly - into the live freak show that is "Glitter and Doom." Recorded over the course of his 2008 tour, the two discs are separated and mixed into a sort of hybrid (one singing/one talking) that somehow feels perfectly natural and in all reality plays exactly how most listeners will want it, rather than breaking up the songs with too-long narratives that play well in a club, but tend to drag down a purely aural experience.

The 17 songs of Disc One play out at over 70 minutes of electrifying music with Waits and his band running the gamut from his own unique version of "high energy" carnival music to full on, break your heart ballads all delivered in that inimitable voice that season-after-season increases its rasp and its grasp on his audience.

It would be impossible to single out a "best" number, but there are several that - on first hearing - stood out a bit above the rest. "The Part You Throw Away" (recorded in Edinburgh) from the album "Blood Money" with its pizzicato strings and the endless pathetic waltz undulating, beneath and a old world Spanish-style guitar solo is one of those timeless numbers that could have come from the Jacques Brel Songbook - or written a century ago.

In similar fashion, Disc One's closer, "Lucky Day" (recorded in Atlanta) is a gooseflesh and teary-eyed finale that has that Waits ballad operatic feel

Along the way there is that Waits prose that paints pictures in the mind more than almost any songwriter in the last 50 years. For instance, who but Mr. Waits could come up with lyrics like those in Circus Lyrics ((here, "Live Circus"):

"Topping the bill was Horse Face Ethel
And her 'Marvellous Pigs In Satin'"

The ambient audience noise feels natural and non-intrusive - and Waits feeds off their respective energies like a vampire at a blood orgy. Everybody wins with "Glitter and Doom."

31 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dull Glitter, December 13, 2009

By 

B. Vercher "Being of Sound" (Baton Rouge, LA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Glitter and Doom Live (Audio CD)

So you see this album and you think "A live Tom Waits album? It's got to be good," because you know Tom Waits is one of the most incredible performers of our time, and he's certainly going to have some pretty amazing musicians in tow. And on these two points, you're right. But, unfortunately, this set is a pretty lackluster record of Tom's latest tour. It's not that the performances are underwhelming; quite the contrary, actually. The music is amazing. Unfortunately, the entire album sounds like it was bootlegged by an audience member. Tom's vocals are so flat and full of low end as to be unintelligible and, at times, distorted. As for the rest of the band, I can't bring myself to believe that the instruments were actually tracked seperately, as they bleed into each other so heavily you often can't discern anything more than the general harmonic structure of the tune. When anyone solos, it only makes what's already a piss poor job all the more painstakingly obvious. In fact, the applause and shouts of the audience often sound clearer and more distinct than the music itself, to the extent of sometimes drowning it out, lending even more credence to my impression that the show was recorded by an external source rather than a direct soundboard.

Surely an artist as successful and committed to their art as Tom could have afforded a better production than this. I would have given this one star, had Disc 2 not come to the rescue. The second half of this 2 disc set is a single track titled simply "Tom's Tales", which threads together a half hour's worth of Tom's musings, shared with the audience between songs, all packed to the brim with Zen-like absurdity and dark humor. This alone makes the set worth buying; just don't expect much from the music.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Make it a double, December 5, 2009

By 

o dubhthaigh (north rustico, pei, canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Glitter and Doom Live (Audio CD)

if I knew when the world was gonna end, I'd wanna be in a diner with Tom Waits (he likely'd have other thoughts) with Allie K after a proper booze up in time to get the first rasher of bacon off the grill before heading to the sheets for the big climax. Until then, there is his music and this is as pure a Waitsian joy as you'll ever hear. At times a burr mixer, at times the last Nighthawk out before dawn, Waits surveys the landscape of his catalogue and comes up strong with each selection. I hope like he#@ there is a DVD on the way. And the Tom's Tales is sheer genius.