The roar that went up from the capacity crowd at the end of 2 hours + of some of the most complex and charismatic music ever written, said it all. That and the 5 minute standing ovation.
Tom Waits had given his personal permission to David Coulter to re-imagine the songs from ‘Rain Dogs’ and Coulter had created a presentation that was positively incredible. Not just playing the songs but taking them to places that even Tom Waits hadn’t imagined and in doing so giving the songs and the characters in them a new life that existed right there and right then,
There was no slavish attempt to recreate the album. From the first moments of Camille O’Sullivan exhorting the gods to ‘Make It Rain’ (not from Rain Dogs but ....), barking and whimpering at the audience and getting the pack mentality going as they in turn howled and barked and whoooofed, you felt that this was something special and when she took that into ‘Singapore’ and made it sound right and totally different to the original we were all beginning to hold our breath wondering what would come next.
The Tiger Lillies gave a simply beautiful version of ‘Diamonds And Gold’ – not a dry eye in the house – and the instrumental ‘Midtown’ brought the band to the fore, Steve Nieve’s keyboards a joy and Dave Okumu’s guitar brilliant.
And then we heard some odd noises off. Some kind of bashing and clattering except that it wasn’t coming from the stage but coming towards it. Erika Stucky, resplendent in a white shock wig, and delivering ‘9th & Hennepin’ to within an inch of its life while playing a spade among other unconventional devices. She also gave us ‘Jockey Full of Bourbon’ and a raucous ‘Union Square’ before giving over to Stef Kamil Carlens and strangely contorted – but moving – versions of ‘Gun Street Girl’ and ‘Cemetery Polka’ with just her voice and guitar.
St Vincent weighed in with a grand ‘Tango Till They’re Sore’ and Frenchman Arthur H played a brilliant ‘Walking Spanish’ before tearing our hearts out again with ‘Time’.
The Tiger Lillies came back out for the 1st encore ‘Anywhere I Lay My Head’ and Martyn Jaques high soprano voice somehow gave the song a new depth and sweet sourness.
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The strength of this was in matching the singer with a song that they could give themselves to without losing track of the original and they succeeded brilliantly. The band was necessarily superb – anything less would have failed dismally – but the star of the evening was the Rain Dogs album itself.
This is the sort of thing that the Barbican absolutely excels at – I just wish I could have given it six stars.
