Tom Waits' audience

Tom Waits, an American artist, started playing music at the age of 11 or 12, and is now 73. Tom Waits is famous for playing Jazz (and Blues, Folk, Rock, etc.) - but not the kind of Jazz that invites the public to dress up and enjoy. His Jazz is gray and dark; his voice is whispering, growling or screaming. He sings about poverty, chaos, about every dark corner of society, about every human life he has the chance to see.

If I need a specific story to illustrate the person Tom Waits is, I will tell you the story of 1976. With his music career still going well, the then 27-year-old moved into a two-room house in West Hollywood with a friend—a two-room house, extremely messy and cluttered. Music critic Barney Hoskyns called it “a work of poverty” (pastiche of poverty). Tom Waits himself later explained:If you want to write about something, you must first create - and live in - the context of that story. So I forced myself to live in poverty.

Hanoi, a decade ago

Art is spread all over Vietnam. But, there is only one city that has gathered enough musical performances of The Beatles, Bob Dylan, BB King, Amy Winehouse... with great frequency over the past two decades, that is Hanoi. Also only in Hanoi, the nightscoverTom Waits music was played and received with raptures.

SessioncoverTom Waits music took place for the first time in January 2016, at a small cultural space in the old quarter. The person “playing” Tom Waits on stage was a young Vietnamese man. His voice, performance style, and graceful body were all very similar to Tom Waits’s style (to the point that there were times when I believed that being very Tom Waits-like must have been a kind of innate talent of his).

But what I remember most about those performances, to this day, is the shimmer of the white shirt he wore. Under the spotlights, the shirt shone like a halo.

That light reminded me of the difference between the two artists. The young artist lived in a miniature high society. Tom Waits, from a middle-class family, often “threw” himself into dark and dusty places.

Around 2018, the “Tom Waits-style” singer temporarily disappeared to study abroad, and Hanoi was once again bustling with international visitors. Among them, many tourists chose to stay in the capital for a long time. And so the next Tom Waits concerts came.

Still in a small cultural space in the old town, the stage was now a chaotic mess. The band gathered many nationalities - Vietnamese, American, Canadian,... Not only microphones and musical instruments, they brought everything else from their "life" to the stage: whiskey glasses swaying in their hands, cigarettes constantly puffing smoke, and even someone brought a set of pots and pans. Using drumsticks to hit the bottom of the pot, creating a loud, clanging sound, they decided to destroy the remaining elegance of the inherently smooth Jazz.

The spotlights still shone down on the stage from above. This time, they could not illuminate the artist’s portrait, because the cigarette smoke in the air was too thick. The room was a dim color.

It is a stage of multinationality and multi-ethnicity. It is a stage of theIvery young, overlapping and mixed with theIof the listeners.

It's Tom Waits' stage.

The chaos was a success. The crowd was so enthusiastic that shows were booked from other bars in the city.

But there is also an interesting thing besides that, the band… has no name. They, could be a group of young, educated and talented Vietnamese; a New Yorker who, unable to find the freedom he desires in his country, came to Hanoi; and other members, with similar stories. As Tom Waits said, if you want to sing about something, you must first live in the context of that story yourself. The people in the bandnamelesslike each little piece, contributing to each other, creating a complete story, “the pastiche of Tom Waits”.

Hanoi, March 17, 2022

“Anh Duc, what is that guy singing about?”, someone asked. It has been almost 40 years now. I can’t forget that voice, nor can I forget the terrible heat and humidity of Pulau Galang. And the horrifying stories we heard about the people forced to live there. Vietnamese “boat people”, or Cambodian survivors of the genocide. Galang was the isolated island chosen for them – a former military barracks built roughly out of wood, now home to 10,000 refugees. Somehow, these poor souls put the horrors of the crossing aside, and continued to live.

Occasionally, we would invite a few people to sit with us in a hut, to tell us a little about themselves - the labor camps, the long journeys across the barren fields in desperate hunger. Or rape & pillage at sea, hunger & despair in a small boat, at the mercy of mighty waves, under an unforgiving sun. When there was nothing left to say, we became numb: it was the deep, husky voice, ringing out during curfew hours, singing of human frailty and the strange twists of life.

It can't have been 40 years. But it was. That damn voice and those dark songs, Foreign Affairs, told the whole story of our journey.

- writer and journalist Nguyen Qui Duc, when talking about the first years of listening to Tom Waits' music.

For more than two years, Hanoi has been devastated by the pandemic, and for more than two years, there has been no Tom Waits concert in the city. The old music venues have disappeared, foreign artists have returned home, and the audience - perhaps they have started families, quit smoking, or simply replaced Waits' music with brighter melodies, more suitable for the days of fighting the pandemic.

And that's when the "old generation" of this city suddenly spoke up.

That is Nguyen Qui Duc, who has organized hundreds of music events in Hanoi over the past ten years. That is Paul Zetter and David Payne, two names that not many people in Hanoi know, but they know Hanoi very well.

They practiced during the last months of social distancing in the city. On March 17, 2022, right after Hanoi reopened, the three "old men" together brought the first Tom Waits concert at 24 Tong Dan.

Gone is the smoke, whiskey, and chaos that characterizes the Tom Waits stage; instead, there are smiles, spread across relieved faces. No longer is the music pathetic, fierce, or dark; instead, Paul Zetter picks up the gentleness in Tom Waits, mixed with his own gentleness.

As the last melodies were playing, a gentle audiencecollapsedown the side of the stage. He bent down, head bowed, tears wrinkled his eyes.

Looking further, the remaining spectators' eyes were all wet, while their faces were smiling.

*

"Who is Tom Waits?" - the employee suddenly appeared and asked, when I was the only one left in the room.music, "I see many people are still talking about him."

"Well, he was basically a good Jazz player. So good that his music always made young people want to smoke, drink, or commit suicide."

"..."

"But old people feel better listening to Tom Waits' music."

"Is it so contradictory?"

"Everyone goes through a time when they want to smoke, drink alcohol and think about suicide. But once they get over it, the rest of their life will be fine. Tom Waits' music goes with every stage of human life like that."

"Ah, so this guy is...Tom WaitsMust knowwait".

Lam Oanh (cover image: Linh Phan)