Tom Jones International

Be sure to scroll down this page for more about Tom at Glastonbury and to come back to see more to be posted.

Here’s some not-so-good video (for which I, for one — lacking at the moment any better video — am still grateful to have of Tom singing Unbelievable. It looks as if this was shot with a video camera from the TV screen. Hope for better stuff later but, meanwhile, Tom and the band — and Tony Reynolds, especially — were great!

And here’s report from someone who watched the proceedings on TV from The Guardian’s music blog:

Glastonbury festival on TV: In which we consider who of the Sunday afternoon acts we most want to sing along to

The first highlights show of Sunday was filled with the venerable acts, rolled out for a pleasant sing-along. But who was the sing-alongiest? And look! Tom Jones has stopped dying his hair!

It was extra bonus sing-along-a-Glastonbury day from what you could tell from the first BBC2 highlights show on Sunday. Tom Jones, Tony Christie, Madness AND Status Quo? You are spoiling us, Ms Eavis. So for the whole of the first highlights show it was air guitars, dad-like dancing and lyric sheets at the ready, but who won the day?

There were scant clips of Tony Christie, only a belting out of Avenues and Alleyways and a well-received Road to Amarillo – you couldn’t say the crowd seemed to be singing along that much. Mainly they joined in with the bits that went “La la la la la lala La – OY!” – and otherwise contented themselves with punching the air, and pretending they were walking on a treadmill miming singing along in a moment of pop-culture weirdness.

Madness sounded as tight and as wall-of-soundish as they ever did, though their sing-along-a-score might be brought down a few points by their insistence on playing lots of new material. But when they played the things people really recognised? The crowd went nuts for them.

If you want to read specifically about Tom’s bit on the TV and a review giving him only two out of five stars, click to

If Status Quo had a triumphant first Glastonbury performance, we wouldn’t have known it: there was a five-minute film showing what it was like to BE Status Quo, or, in fact, what it was like to be Francis Rossi in his underpants – and then half of one song, as far as I could tell.

And then there was Jones, who also seemed to bring out some new material, but was mainly content to build the audience up to a sing-alonging frenzy of big hits. It was all It’s Not Unusuals and Delilahs and Kiss.

But more than that, the ease with which an almost 70-year-old Jones approached the whole thing was the best bit to watch. He talked to the crowd, tens of thousands strong, as if he was chatting to the sound man and his mate, ten feet away.

“Can you hear that better now?” he said.
“YES!” shouted the thousands, in unison.
“That’s alright is it?” said Tom.
“YES!” shouted thousands of people.
“Got the balance right?” he enquired.
“YES!” they shouted.

You wanted them to add “THOUGH YOU COULD TWEAK THE BASS AND THE TOP END IS A LITTLE TINNY BUT, YOU KNOW, WHAT CAN WE EXPECT? IT’S A FESTIVAL, MATE.”

But does he get the sing-along of the day award? Clearly it’s hard to tell from what we saw here. And does anyone actually sing along in their living room the way they would if they were standing hungover in a field in Somerset, caked in their own three-day sweat and shouting at the top of their lungs in some blissed-out state? No. At least, I shouldn’t think so. The neighbours might complain.

But then Jones popped out Unbelievable by EMF, and that made me smile the most. While they might not have done much singing for the rest of it, the crowd shouted out “you’re UNBELIEVABLE!” because he was. And it was. Tom Jones goes all early-90s indie dance on us. Oh yes.

The Welsh crooner still has a belting set of pipes, even if the sound system didn’t do them justice. But what’s with the odd cover versions?

Sunday 28 June 2009 20.28 BST

Who: Tom Jones

Where and when: Pyramid stage, Saturday, 4.20pm

Dress code: Grey is the new black. Orange is the new pink.

What happened: Tom was pretty agro *when we arrived at the Pyramid stage. Apparently the sound wasn’t loud enough, and we all know that Tom Jones sets live and die by the decibels. “Can you all shout at the sound guy to turn it up!” he asked, with more than a hint of frustration in his voice. Then he played Green, Green Grass of Home for maybe the 17,025th time while Michael Eavis danced around side stage. Now I know these things are all supposed to be about mid-afternoon fun in the sun, but it still stumps me why you’d go and see this over so many other things. But maybe I’m just annoyed because I always get asked to review him because my name is similar and I don’t think I can take many more Tom Jones festival shows. OK, so the Winehouse-chanelling new numbers such as If He Should Ever Leave You had a fair stab at making things sound fresh. But as for the cover of EMF’s Unbelievable …

Who’s watching: Flag wavers, Klaxon parpers and the kind of festivalgoer who finds V “pretty edgy”.

High point: He’s still got a belting set of pipes, even if the sound guy wasn’t doing them justice.

Low point: “This is a song I did with the Stereophonics” – words no music fan ever wants to hear.

In a Tweet: It is the year 2047, and I’m still reviewing Tom Jones on the Pyramid stage. He is singing the Green, Green Grass of Home.

(*This should be spelled “aggro” and is short for “aggressive.” In UK slang it means annoyed, too.)

Tom Jones on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury 2009/Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images