By Pete Brooks
Gazette Newspapers Pop Music Critic
Delusions of grandeur.
That’s what I had, backstage at the Shrine Auditorium last Sunday.
I’ve been lucky enough to get to review Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan recently, but this event was simply an embarrassment of riches. With at least two or three certifiable geniuses on the bill, ie: Tom Waits, Steve Earle and Eddie “Gosh It’s Tough Being A Rockstar” Vedder, you couldn’t have kept me away with a court order.
We were all there for a concert to benefit an organization called Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation (MVFR). This is a group of families of murder victims who have banded together to oppose capital punishment, an uphill battle in this time and place.
At the pre-show press conference, a number of the members of this organization were in attendance. I so much couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like to be in their position, the enormity of their cumulative loss had an oddly distancing effect on me.
I found Steve Earle’s explanation of his presence there a lot easier to get my mind around. He said he was opposed to capital punishment on account of the damage he believes it does to society at large to be willfully complicit in the murders of their fellow citizens, the condemned.
He went on to further express his support for MVFR by asserting that, “I’d be here tonight even if Tom Waits wasn’t on the bill!”
The show itself was divided into two halves.
Steve Earle kicked the first half off beautifully. Always at his best with just guitar and his haunted, raw and ragged voice, he set a mighty tough standard for the rest of the night to follow. I could write a whole column just about his voice. It’s honest, true and completely unadorned, and it leaves nothing out.
Then there’s his songwriting, which is absolutely in the top echelon of its tradition, and was amply demonstrated during his too-short set.
Lyle Lovett was great, in his low-key way, also at his best with just guitar & voice. His duet with Steve Earle on Townes Van Zandt’s “Lungs” was a first-half highlight.
Also on the bill, Ani Defranco and Michelle Shocked were both in good form, despite DeFranco’s work having a tendency toward the coffee-house, which is not my favorite thing.
And poor Eddie Vedder seems to be trying to disappear into himself. On a night where even artists I was totally unfamiliar with knocked me out, Vedder underwhelmed. I’m sure he sat down for his whole set out of some kind of “humble” thing, but you physically can’t sing as well sitting down. It’s a diaphragm deal; you can look it up. So as far as energy and momentum went, Vedder put a stop to all that.
Anybody who heard him sing “Masters Of War” at the Bob Dylan tribute concert a couple years back knows this guy has pipes from here to forever, so I was pretty disappointed with the lackluster performance he turned in on this night.
Tom Waits opened the show after intermission, and it was suddenly like a whole different concert. The moment he hit the stage, the entire ‘feel’ of the evening turned on its ear.
Rakishly attired in a dark purple suit, grey shirt and orange patterned tie, and backed up by a crackerjack 4-piece band, Tom greeted the crowd with a blistering version of “Walk Away,” from the “Dead Man Walking” Soundtrack.
Playing a longer, and better-received set than anyone else, he alternated between full band tunes and solo turns at the piano.
If you’ve never heard Tom Waits sing, imagine that his voice sounds like Johnny Cash’s, if it had been thrown out the back of a speeding pickup truck on a dirt road and dragged thirty miles over ground glass and razor blades. All worked up and in full roar, he sounds like the angry God of the Old Testament at the gates of Sodom and Gomorrah. On the other end, it’s a craggy, rumbling whisper capable of great tenderness and compassion.
The only artist called back for an encore, Tom finally offered up a sweet, sad run-through of “Yesterday Is Here” and then left the stage with the crowd still all hopped up on endorphins and adrenaline.
At the end of the night, after the Eddie Vedder/Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn set, Tom returned to lead the assembled artists in a somewhat ragtag, but heartfelt stab at his wonderful and apropos “Innocent When You Dream.” Even in its rough and tumble execution, the song came off like a benediction.
It seemed an equally appropriate salute to the righteous dreamers of MVFR, who are turning their grief and rage not towards vengeance, but forgiveness. More information on this organization can be found on their web page at: notinourname.com.
© 1998, Gazette Newspapers
