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Tom In West Palm Beach Last Thursday & A Reporter Stuck In the Last Century
Sunday, April 26th, 2009Let me tell you from personal experience: When I go to review a show with pre-conceived ideas, I usually wind up getting it wrong because those ideas color my ability to see clearly. Thus, as a responsible journalist, I really try to keep an open mind and, when possible, do some homework before I go. Below is a fine example of a reporter who didn’t do that and, as a result, clearly didn’t know what she was watching and equally clearly didn’t appreciate it. Tom was at the venue Thursday and Regis Philbin and Don Rickles (who is hilarious) a day later. Compounding the crime, this chick seems to have gotten stuck on her column’s title, too. That’s bad — when you fall in love with your own words and they lead you astray.
Old School Special: Tom Jones and Regis & Rickles
by Leslie Gray Streeter/Palm Beach Post blogs/
If you’d sat in the audience at the Kravis Center Thursday and Friday and squinted real good, and not minded the lack of slot machines or people offering you free drinks, you may have thought you were in Vegas. In sort of a one-two-three punch, Tom Jones, and then Regis Philbin and Don Rickles, showed up to entertain the people old school style, with plenty of audience participation.
Of course, for each of our friends, that means something different — with Tom, it often involves panties. With Regis, it’s about flirting with senior citizens. And with Rickles…well, it’s about saying derogatory things about one’s ethnicity, religion or sexual identification, but then talking about everybody else’s, too, and maybe making you all laugh in your collective state of insult. (I thought he was funny. My guest disagreed. But at least Rickles didn’t, like some random old lady in the lobby after the show, assume that because I was black I would know the whereabouts of her home health aide, a 50-something woman she referred to as “my girl.”
Yeah. I’ll take Don Rickles any day.
THURSDAY: TOM JONES AND CONFESSIONS OF WOULD-BE PANTY THROWERS
[Two] lovely ladies, Kathleen Besson and Karen Laabs of Ft.Lauderdale, wanted nothing more than to come celebrate their bond of sisterhood by coming to see Tom Jones, enjoy his classic songs and still-swiveling hips, and throw some panties at him.
But then Kathleen went and forget to buy any.
That’s OK, because they probably wouldn’t have let her anyway.
“(My sister) bought me the tickets for my birthday, and I was supposed to go get underwear today and I forgot,” she explains. “I’m the naughty sister.”
Thus, Kathleen’s naughtiness, at least as far as Tom Jones is concerned, went forever untested. But something has changed in the house of hips — last time the Welsh warbler was at the the Kravis Center, there were hordes of ladies pressed up against the stage, dancing, staring and tossing the traditional undergarments at him. That’s just what you do. It’s like tipping your waiter — “You were very good, Tom. Here’s a thong.”
But this time, every lady who ventured anywhere near the stage was under the watchful eye of the Panty Police — Kravis ushers who tapped them on the shoulder and sent them back to their seats, their hopes dashed and lacy underthings unthrown. Not until the end of the show, in which Jones proved that though his hair has grayed, his hips and naughtiness are still intact (several times, he did that suggestive arm thing that referred to his own package), did they let anybody near the stage, unless they were handing him roses.
Not sure what that’s about. But it’s like Santa saying “You tell me what you want, but if you come near my lap, the elves, Blitzen and Rudolph are taking you down, man.” Still, a fun show. And he’s still got it, “it” being a scale-scaling voice and moves that make this 30-something blush inappropriately.
April 26th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
I think the writer is trying to place herself beyond the mere mortals who would attend a Tom Jones concert. But in the end she admits “he’s still got it.”
This is another good example of how Tom has been sabotaged since the 70’s. The media, once again tries to embarrass, or make you feel un-cool about enjoying Tom’s music.
April 26th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Sharon: From what I’ve seen since 24 Hours came out, a good chunk of the music press — the more powerful press, at any rate — do get it. Tom’s got credibility among writers in the northeast and in California fromBillboard and lots of alternative pubs. I want believe the rest will catch up. (Don’t mean to denigrate the rest of the 50, but that seems to be how trends go.)
April 27th, 2009 at 7:51 am
I can understand why this reporter is writing for the exhaulted Palm Beach Post and not a more respectable publication that actually carries some weight, guess she will be stuck at the Palm Beach Post for some time,unless she decides to look at things with a more open mind
April 27th, 2009 at 9:47 am
It still seems that she liked the show and recognized Tom’s talent, according to her last paragraph, She obviously has mixed feelings from the tone of her article. It’s almost as if she was expected to review the show as a dinosaur and uncool. I only recently became a full-fledged fan, after attending the terminal 5 show. I’m 53 years young. I can’t wait for the next 2 shows I’m going to at The Beacon theater (no one would go with me) and Westbury, Capital One Theater. I am making my 27 year old son come with me. He does not want to come, but I told him that if he never sees Tom live he will always regret it. He works in the music industry, has five TV music Channels that he programs. I hope this will wipe those preconcieved notions out of his mind and maybe he’ll put Tom’s Music on some of those channels or other people’s channels at work. I’ve gone to his shows with him, such as Metallica, so now it is his turn.
April 27th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Carol: The issue, I think, is the need to drag in underwear and not give any credit for an amazing ever-evolving career. Tom Jones is not a oldies act or a nostalgia trip. But, like it or not, this woman took the easy way out and treated it as such. She’s out of tune with the times.
April 27th, 2009 at 10:17 am
I don’t think this review is all that bad. The main thing is that she stated that Tom still had it. As silly of a topic as it seems, the whole “panties” debate is a problem. The problem is that this was a big part of Tom’s show for many years. Women got accustomed to being able to have fun with this aspect of the show. I can understand Tom/his son/etc wanting to move past it…this isn’t the 70′s anymore and it is hard to be taken seriously as an artist when you are wiping your brow on a thong. True fans respect Tom on this and the crowds in Vegas seem to get it too. But, out on tour across America, they seem to be out of the loop! The thing that everyone including Tom and his management need to understand is that the panties and discussion of panties in reviews are never going away. With that in mind I think that instead of trying to ignore them altogether, Tom would have been better off if he had simply decided to play the whole thing down some instead of of ignoring them altogether…it seems unnatural to pretend they aren’t there and go about walking on them. If I were Tom I would briefly and playfully acknowledge them and have someone clear them a time or two during the show. Don’t get upset when girls throw the panties or reviewers talk about them – maybe they just didn’t get the memo. For better or worse the fact remains that Tom and all of us will be long gone from this earth and he will still be known for two things – his powerful voice and panties thrown onstage.
April 27th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Good point, Jeremy.
April 27th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
You’re right, The panty thing will never go away because even if Tom could no longer sing (God, that was horrible even to type!!) women would still throw panties at him.
April 27th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
It has always been part of the show and the tradition seems to have been passed down from generation to generation of fans. Many of the women I saw tossing pantied or slingshotting thongs on stage were in their 20′s or 30′s. Heck, I admit I even did it 20 years ago in a ruse to get Tom to call us down on stage in Latham. The problem is that the panties landed in the orchestra pit and the Blossoms nearly wound up with a hair net! They tossed them out on stage for Tom to pick up. He joked with the crowd that they might employ the Cinderella story to see who they belonged to! Alas, he never saw the keys attached with our names on them!
April 30th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
At the terminal 5 show in NYC a husband and wife seemed to be having a tense few minutes during the show. He said something like “Just do it already”. Then “Do it. You know you want to, so do it already”. This went on several times during the show. at the end he said “If you don’t do it now, I’ll do it for you”. And she threw her panties and they missed the stage, falling into the pit in front of me. It was funny. Just because women are magnetically attracted to Tom and have this tradition of throwing panties at him, it doesn’t cheapen his talent or what he has produced iin his lifetime. That’s what these writers should put in their articles. This tour and new CD set out what it was meant to do. Showed Tom IS a major talent, which has been forgotten by many in the US, is a great songwriter,
and has gotten him a whole new set of fans. I definitely see him in a different light, and play his music when I train people (exercise) so they can be exposed to it.