Hannibal, maybe just Rex

In the Coliseum
Originally uploaded by birdcage.

Nashville! Okay, mostly I napped in Nashville after a string of problems and issues at the hotel.* But I did walk around along Broadway, where there are a string of bars and clubs and record shops, all of them running talent shows offering the opportunity to strut your stuff. Musicians line the street at night, playing guitars and harmonicas and singing country songs they've written themselves. It reminded me, oddly, of the way actors flock to, well, Broadway, in New York.

The Ryman Auditorium is a pretty interesting space, lined with pews, the back wall punctuated by colored glass windows. It was a great venue for Tom Waits-- just intimate enough. And he was incredible-- one of the best shows I've ever seen. His movements were sporadic and sometimes spastic, he wagged his finger at the audience and punctuated the songs with a combination of his fingers and his feet. He interspersed the song list with sharp, witty observations and quick responses to the comments thrown out by the audience.

The Tom Waits oeuvre is massive, so you can't really hope to hear your most beloved songs in 75 minute show. And he didn't do any of my absolute favorites... but he did do two songs from my favorite album (Bone Machine)-- a very blusey version of Murder in the Red Barn, and the amusingly snarky Goin' Out West, during which he gave signficant, eyebrow wagging looks to the audience while declaring:

I don't need no make up
I got real scars
I got hair on my chest
I look good without a shirt

The only downside was that it was (supposed to be) a no photography/recording show. Not that this prevented people from shooting off the occasional snap, flashing the audience from the balcony with their point and shoots (me thinking, that is so not going to come out). Knowing this I hadn't worked terribly hard to finish off the ISO 400 film in my cameras (I had ISO 1600 in the bag, which I'd brought in response to the Ryman's pro-camera policy). But after watching other people flashing away I tried to get in a couple of shots with much too slow for the situation film. But other than that, a stellar show-- actually worth the interminable drive.

Which was interminable. It took twelve hours of straight driving to get back to DC, with a whole lotta Virginia in the middle. But I did start the morning off with coffee... making all the difference.


* The hotel had many many problems of the couldn't get their shit together nature. IT was no Snowy River, that's for sure. The one thing that they *did* do right, however, was to give you a complimentary Goo Goo Cluster upon check in. I'd never heard of them until P introduced me them on the trip to Montana... and daaaamn, they are yummy. If they'd doled out a few more complimentary clusters I might have felt less crabby about things like there not being a lightbulb in the light in the room. Of course, if they'd doled a few more of those out I also might have OD'd on sugar and thrown up, which conceivably would have made me more crabby.