Tom Waits and the big refrigerator

I had just checked in at the Portobello Hotel when my friend Phil called: - Do you want to come along and see Tom Waits at the Dominion Theatre, he said. Phil worked for Tom Waits' record company and of course I wanted to go, Waits was a hero. When we entered the theatre he had just started on "16 Shells" and the band was in full force. After the amazing concert Phil took me backstage and up several flights of stairs to Tom Waits' dressing room. Phil was running up the stairs and I was (already 15 years ago) overweight and short of breath. Suddenly there he was and we said hi and we loved the show and I remembered I told him I really liked his way of mixing songs and theatre - and I liked the big refrigerator he kept on stage (when he took out a beer the bright light shone over the audience). Phil told him I was the financial director of the record company in Sweden but also that I was his biggest fan there. I probably was. But now I was only trying to catch my breath. -You must bring the refrigerator to Sweden when you come there on tour, I said. Later that month he did a wonderful concert at Konserthuset in Stockholm and afterwards I said to my friends: - I told him to bring the refrigerator. And he did! My friends were impressed. Published in Remark, February 2003

 

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