Two groups queued for Sir Tom Jones at ACL Live on Wednesday: the stair line and the elevator line. For the 84-year-old singer’s core demographic, the elevator queue was longer.
The Welsh singer hobbled onto the stage in navy slacks and a sky blue shirt that rivaled his light eyes. His hair looked like a cotton ball and his goatee was milk white. Two shiny rings sat on each of his pinky fingers. Jones may be older now, but his voice sounded just like it did in the late ‘60s. Rich, deep and smooth, like expensive brandy.
His first song said it all: a Bobby Cole cover of “I’m Growing Old” (1967). It was a clever way to broach the stark sight of his ageing physique, as most audience members remember Jones from the era when virility was his fuel and the ’70s were his rocket.
The next stop in the setlist also spelled out his story. On a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Tower of Song” Jones sang, “I was born with the gift of a golden voice/And 27 angels from the Great Beyond/They tied me to this table right here in the Tower of Song.”
Most of the show was covers, including compositions by Randy Newman, Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Prince, the Waterboys and more. Nevertheless, Jones made sure to pull out his hits.
“We’d like to take you all back to the beginning of my recording career, which started in 1964,” Jones said at one point. “I recorded this song in November of ’64 and it came out in January of ’65. It was number one by March the first, which incidentally is St. David’s Day, for any Welsh people” (St. David is the patron saint of Jones’ native Wales).
Jones launched into his 1965 smash hit “It’s Not Unusual,” written by Les Reed and Gordon Mills. The song was originally offered to English pop swinger Sandie Shaw, but she was so impressed with Jones after he demoed it for her that she recommended he sing it instead. Halfway through the song, Jones literally purred into the microphone and the crowd went crazy.
This old man is still a sexpot, or rather a “Sexbomb” like the next song on his setlist. He’s still got it. Just close your eyes and listen to his voice. Two legendary songwriters harnessed Jones’ talent and raw sensuality early in his career, Les Reed and Burt Bacharach. His relationship with Bacharach resulted in “Promise Her Anything” and “What’s New Pussycat” for the 1965 Peter Sellers movie of the same name. Les Reed penned “It’s Not Unusual” and “I’m Coming Home” in 1967, and “Delilah” in 1968.
What Jones couldn’t deliver in onstage dynamism, he made up for in vocal dexterity. Sexy gyrating and thrusting was part of his early allure, but that ship sailed with two hip replacements in the past decade due to chronic pain and mobility issues. Nevertheless, his tone remains perfectly preserved. If his voice has degraded in the last 5 decades, I’d give anything to hear what he sounded like in his prime.
“A friend of mine called me a few years ago, well it was quite a few years ago now,” Jones said. “Her name was Anne Dudley, and she used to be with this band called the Art of Noise. She called me one day and she said look, I’m doing the music for this low-budget film and they want you to sing a song in it, do you fancy it? I said sure, I knew the song, so I thought why not. I’m glad I did it because when the film came out it was a big hit.”
He launched into Randy Newman’s 1972 song “You Can Leave Your Hat On.” The low-budget film that his version of the track appeared in happed to be The Full Monty (1997), the amateur male stripper flick which became a cult classic English comedy. During the line “Go over there, turn on the lights/all the lights” the entire venue lit up, blinding the concertgoers with a surprise momentary white flash.
Women famously throw their underwear onto the stage for Tom Jones. The fad started in Copacabana in 1968, when women were handing him napkins to wipe his sweat during performances. One woman took things a step further, lifting up her dress and handing Jones her underwear. He returned them to her, but the joke turned into a trend that followed him for decades.
Did the old bitties fling their bloomers onto the stage? Yep. Halfway through the set, two women strutted up to the stage and tossed pairs of panties. Big ones.
“A few years ago, we put out an album called ‘Surrounded by Time’ (2021). When it came out in Great Britain it got to number one, so now I’m officially the oldest person in Great Britain to have a number one album,” Jones said. “Before me it was Bob Dylan, he was the oldest one. Funny enough, this next song was a Bob Dylan song.”
He began singing Bob Dylan’s 1976 song “One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)” before introducing his next cover by a Texas legend.
“Two years ago, just before we came here, we were in Los Angeles at the Hollywood Bowl helping Willie Nelson celebrate his birthday. He just had another birthday, so he’s 92 now. Two years ago I thought to myself, my god, Willie Nelson is 90 years old and he’s still singing? And at the time I was only 83! Now I’m going to be 85 next month.”
Jones crooned Nelson’s 1993 song “Across the Borderline,” which the country singer asked him to cover at his 90th birthday celebration titled “Long Story Short: Willie Nelson 90” at the Hollywood Bowl on April 29-30, 2023.
Austin legend Jimmie Vaughan came to see Jones at ACL Live too. Jones’ guitar player Scott McKeon found out that Vaughan was going to be attending the show and was nervous to play because he grew up worshiping the Vaughan brothers. Tom chimed in after an especially aggressive solo by McKeon, saying “He found out Jimmie Vaughan is in the audience, so he’s showing off a little.”
For “Delilah,” the entire theater lit up in ruby lights. The band pulled out an accordion and the song garnered the biggest roar of the night. His cover of “KISS” by Prince made many women go wild. Some who were dancing in the isle had to be escorted back to their chairs.
I counted at least one more red pair of underwear thrown at Tom’s feet. There were at least five panties on the stage, and the encore hadn’t even started yet.
He started the encore with his hit “Green, Green Grass of Home.” Elder fans roused from their chairs and flocked the front of the stage like fanatic teenagers. Women were falling onto each other like schoolgirls.
His set drew to an end with a “One Hell of a Life” by Katell Keineg. One hell of a life, Tom has certainly had. He’s admitted to sleeping with upwards of 250 women when he was in his Lothario era. At one point, he even had a dressing room just for entertaining his female guests.
The last song of the night was “Strange Things Happening Every Day,” a Sister Rosetta Tharpe ballad. I was secretly hoping this wasn’t the end, he graced his previous stop in New Orleans with two extra songs, “Johnny B. Goode” and “Great Balls of Fire,” but no such luck.
I’ll admit that if Tom Jones was 60 years younger, or if I was 40 years older, I’d have a crush on him, too. After seeing his ACL Live show, maybe I do.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Panties thrown at Tom Jones during his Austin concert at ACL Live. He’s still a ‘Sexbomb’
Reporting by Mars Salazar, Austin American-Statesman / Austin American-Statesman
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
