US musician Tom Waits plays first ever concerts in Czech Republic

The American musician Tom Waits has won legions of fans around the world with his distinctive, growl-like voice and evocative lyrics. This week, Czech music lovers finally got to see the singer live for the first time, when he played two sold-out shows at Prague’s Congress Centre. I caught the second concert, on Tuesday.

Tom Waits, photo: CTK

Tom Waits doesn’t go out on the road very often and when it was announced he was coming to Prague – one of only seven stops on the European leg of his Glitter and Doom tour – the relatively pricey tickets sold out quickly.

In fact, some fans came extremely long distances to see the most gravelly voiced man in showbiz at the Congress Centre (capacity 2,700). I met people who’d come from Lebanon and Greece, and the bar was a bit of a Tower of Babel.

Tom Waits, photo: CTK

Monday and Tuesday’s two-hour plus shows featured songs from various points in Tom Waits’s career, from his brilliant 1980s run of LPs like Swordfishtrombones and Raindogs, to the more percussion-heavy recent albums. His five-piece band, including two of Waits’s sons, were excellent.

The main hall at Prague’s Congress Centre was built to host Communist Party meetings not rock concerts, and Waits himself said he’d tried the seats and they were too soft. The sound and even volume left something to be desired as well. But despite the shoddy venue the gigs went down a storm and have garnered absolutely glowing reviews in the Czech media.