Show & Venue Reviews, TJ Questions, What's New, Pussycat?
Please share your Tom Jones shows with other fans. Setlist? Audience? Energy? What was it like being there? We’d love to hear from you.
And, while you’re telling us about the shows, please let us know what you think of the venues where Tom plays. Clubs, theaters, casinos — Tom Jones performs in all of them. Which venue do you think is the best? The worst?
So that other fans will know what’s in store when they buy their tickets, please tell us a little bit about the venues you know. If possible, try to use the format below so others can tell at a glance what you think. The best venue will merit ****. More than one review of a venue is welcome.
Another Review From Tom at the HOB In Boston
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009Jones pronounces ‘he’s alive,’ and then proves it
By Sarah Rodman/Boston Globe / March 3, 2009
Tom Jones came out singing not just a song but a declaration Sunday night at the House of Blues.
“I’m alive and I’m doing my thing and singing my song,” he proclaimed in that familiar voice, the very essence of machismo. The Tommy James cover of I’m Alive from Jones’s latest album, 24 Hours, served notice that Jones has still got it going on. And it was no idle boast.
For 90 minutes the frisky Welsh entertainer, 68, rousingly retraced the many musical steps of his 45-year career, and he wasn’t too tired to kick his leg up higher than his head while he was at it. Clad in a fitted black suit and shirt unbuttoned just enough but not too much, Jones fronted a crackling 11-piece band, including a lively four-man horn section, that effortlessly switched gears to suit Jones’s every persona.
The enduring image of the swinging ’60s pop star and sex symbol was amply represented by the strutting She’s a Lady, the lilting Delilah, and the oom-pa-pa fizz of “What’s New Pussycat?” Jones may have lost a bit of his high register and sustain, but the tone, clarity, and power of his beefy baritone remain very much intact.
He also took a trip to Nashville with the gentle singalong Green Green Grass of Home, stopped into the disco for the thumping Sex Bomb, and revisited old standards with small combo takes of Fly Me to the Moon and That Old Black Magic.
But it was Jones the balladeer and bluesman who proved to be the most revelatory. He was truly touching during the new autumn-years remembrance Seasons and a faithfully funky breakdown of Bill Withers’s masterful Grandma’s Hands. And he injected just the right dose of raunch into the lowdown and sultry Git Me Some.
Though Jones is perceived by some as a Vegas lounge lizard, the campy wink-wink moments were few. Aside from some obligatory posterior wiggling, salacious hip thrusts, and growls — particularly during the burlesque romp You Can Leave Your Hat On — Jones played it straight and sincere (except, of course, when mugging after dodging the occasional flying panties).
It’s not unusual that It’s Not Unusual brought out the audience’s giddy inner Carlton (the Tom Jones-idolizing cousin with ridiculous dance moves on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”), as the arms and hips of young and old, straight and gay, swished frantically in opposition.
At the end of the night, after Jones took it home with a comically stentorian take on Prince’s Kiss,the tally of knickers flung at the stage – that we saw – stood at seven. But that relatively paltry number wasn’t because Tom Jones didn’t bring the heat.
Sarah Rodman can be reached at srodman@globe.com.
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Now thats a review that gives Tom his due although I’m still waiting for a review that completely leaves out any mention of panties. ;-0