Show Report: October 10, 2003 @ Hotel Cafe

The first of two shows Tom played at the Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles, California. If you were at this show and have a review or report, please feel free to send it to us!

Reported by Saffron, originally posted here.

You look like a nice man...
what's your name?

So, last night, I drove down to LA's Hotel cafe, by myself, after inadvertently following a big truck off the wrong ramp on the treacherous Southern California freeways. I was originally supposed to carpool with pyrifera, but instead of Burbank, ended up in Santa Monica and the sketchy side of the 'fashion district'. Luckily pyrifera was there by the phone when I phoned in from The Skeeviest Place in A Dark Hole Town (TM), and managed to get me to the club in one piece, my car intact as well. No small animals were harmed, I didn't hyperventilate (much) and I managed to get there about 15 or 20 minutes before Tom performed. I had been standing in front of his roadie the entire time, and I didn't even know - and apparently I may have walked past him once or twice before his gig - the Hotel is this lovely, intimate cafe with red drapes hanging from the stage, and it's mood lighting - which meant I couldn't see a fucking thing except the shadows of people.

After the opening act ended, I meandered up toward the front and found agentotter saving a table for me, and it was right next to the stage. I basically was about a few feet away from Tom and the Two Ollies all night.

Oh yeah. *basks in the Tom love*

Tom played a sampler set of songs, mostly from Tom Mcrae, but the intimate atmosphere paired with my excitement at seeing Tom at last, made every song crystal clear and amazing, particularly his rendition of A & B song (Keyboard Ollie's backing vocals were fantastic.) The set list as far as I could remember, and not in order: You Only disappear, Streetlight, the Boy with the bubble gun, Sao Paulo Rain, Walking 2 Hawaii, A & B song, Ghost of a Shark, and Border song. Then he announced that he'd be appearing at the Viper Room later that night.

In between banter was light and relaxed, Tom gently mocked us about 'the governor' and the election results and how pleased he was at the turnout, calling us all beautiful and intelligent...with great taste.

All through the set, I couldn't help myself and quietly sang along to all the songs, briefly catching Keyboard Ollie's eyes once in a while - Cellist Ollie is a supreme musician, btw (they all are, but Cellist Ollie is just...wow.)

Other things about the gig: I caught voleuse as I was walking through the cafe trying to see if iamnight had arrived yet, and also on a lookout for voleuse, so I gave her a little wave - she made a nifty little TOMINATION sign and let me have it (and I displayed it on our table, but I don't think Tom actually saw it, as his eyeline was considerably over our heads. Oh well. It made me happy.)

Several people asked us if they could share our table (we had been saving two extra seats) and we kept on saying no until Tom appeared, and then I turned around and offered one of the seats to Miles, a fellow Tom fan, who had asked us early on.

Miles is a cute, sandy blond Tom fan. Attractive male Tom fans....they exist. Who knew? Anyway, he was really sweet and nice to chat to before and after the gig, and I hope to see him again next Thursday at the Hotel again, but who knows?

Afterwards, it became a bit of a rush, as everyone was flowing to the back of the cafe to get cds and to talk to Tom, who was shuffled off to the side in the hallway between the cafe/stage and the exit. So I grabbed agentotter and filed patiently in the sort of not line to see if I could talk to Tom, jog his memory about syzylynx and just thank him for putting on such a great set.

As we trudge along behind the rest of the concert goers - agentotter goes off to draw me a map to get back to Ye Old Homestead, and I end up right next to voleuse and her friends. Thankfully, one of her more outgoing friends introduces her to Tom, and voleuse points off to me, and then I talk to Tom.

His eyes briefly light up when I talk about Lynn and the Tomination thing - and he smiles and asks me how I heard about his music, do I listen to KCRW (the great NPR/handpicked music station in LA), and I said, I do, but that's not how, and then I quickly explain the 30 second Amazon thing, the Buffy appearance (Tom nods a bit here) and then me getting his albums and I think time shifts now because I feel like I'm talking about 30 miles and second and Tom is just smiling and nodding at me and I don't know if he actually got any of what I said.

But that is not important because he said, (paraphrasing) "Well, thank you very much. The cheque's in the mail, I really appreciate what you're doing...the Tomination is really great, clever..." and then somewhere along that, he thanked all of us for coming out and seeing him, and that he'd be playing a few more dates in California, which I will of course advertise obnoxiously at the end of this entry.

So that was my Tom conversation. He's very soft spoken and charming, and in the spotlights, he looks a bit unreal - like the figure of a wasted romantic poet. I think it's the shadows in the eyes.

After talking to Tom, agentotter and I found the merchandise man, and through agentotter's questioning as I was buying another Just Like Blood cd, the merchandise guy gave me a free stack of Karaoke Soul singles, 'for being such a great fan'. Eeeee. I was so surprised and happy. You know, TOMINATION wouldn't work without you guys trusting me, so really, I have to thank everyone that came along with TOMINATION with me.