Performances: 1970 - 1975

1970

1971

Unidentified shows 1971:
Date unknown (June - July 1971): The Troubadour. Los Angeles/ USA
Date unknown (1971): The White Whale. Bird Rock/ USA
Date unknown (1971): The Candy Company. San Diego/ USA
Date unknown (1971): The Bifrost Bridge. La Mesa/ USA

1972

1973

Start first tour promoting Closing Time
April 1973 - June 1973
(album released March, 1973).
Tom Waits: vocals, acoustic guitar, piano. Bob Webb: standup bass. Rich Phelps: trumpet. John Forsha: guitar

End first tour promoting Closing Time
April 1973 - June 1973

Redlands Bowl: 25 Grant Street, Redlands/ USA.The Buffalo Nickel Jug Band & Arthur Lee Harper warmed up, and a $1 dollar donation was recommended.

Tom Waits (1973): "I haven't been doing too many gigs here in LA but I was out for 2 months on the road with a group on the East coast - did that, and I've been back about a month now, did a thing out in Redlands, not too many clubs around town though right now, still hoot at the Troubadour occasionally" (Source: Folkscene, 1973 (KPFK-FM). Radio interview by Howard Larman. August 12, 1973). The Redlands Daily Facts newspaper review was very favorable, although the reviewer noted that many in the crowd walked out on the performance. She states "...this person had something that made people hate him. It must be genius, I decided, and I have not changed my opinion since".

Folk Arts Rare Records. San Diego/ USA. With Bob Webb

Carey Driscoll (2009): “It was a cramped little store with record racks. People were literally sitting underneath the tables because there were so many crammed into the place. I think he created a character for himself and then became that character, I wouldn’t even say it was a conscious creation of a character, more that every day you become a little further to the left of dead center and before you know it you've become the Tom Waits character that the public knows rather than the one that his classmates knew." (Source: Carey Driscoll interview May 30, 2007 as printed in “Lowside Of The Road: A Life Of Tom Waits" by Barney Hoskyns. Faber/ Broadway, 2009)

Folk Arts Rare Records. San Diego/ USA. With Bob Webb

"Folk Arts Rare Records was then located in Hillcrest at 3743 Fifth Avenue. "I still have a tape of the show," says owner Lou Curtiss. "He did our open-mike nights back when he was still at Hilltop High. In '73, he was a doorman at the Heritage, but when they closed, I started doing concerts at the store, and I asked him to do one of the first ones. We didn't have much space, so we were crammed to the rooftops. He was just starting to get real well known...Bob Webb, who owned the Heritage, played guitar, and Tom played guitar and piano." With only one album under his belt, Waits performed songs from his upcoming LP The Heart of Saturday Night, including "Shiver Me Timbers" and "San Diego Serenade." Admission was "no more than $4," and Waits was paid from the proceeds of around 150 ticket sales. "He got most of the money," says Curtiss. "We weren't getting rich off these things." Waits lived locally from 1959 until 1971." (Source: "Best San Diego Jams" by Jay Allen Sanford. San Diego Reader. October 4, 2007)

Start second tour promoting Closing Time
November 1973 - December 1973
(opening for Frank Zappa).
Tom Waits: vocals, acoustic guitar, piano. Bob Webb: standup bass

Bob Webb (2004): "On November 22 we flew from Buffalo to New York La Guardia, where we were met by a convoy of limousines that drove us downtown to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where we were given rooms. (Tom and I shared a room at most, if not all of these accommodations.) Tom and I didn't play Buffalo, because Taj Mahal had been booked as the opening act. At some point... we were hustled into the limousines again and driven to an undisclosed location in midtown Manhattan. Speculation was rampant, but no one seemed to know where we were going. We went deep into an underground garage in midtown, maybe six floors down, to a giant set of doors like a hotel entrance, which led to big elevators, and we were swept up to a floor that included a giant room full of grand pianos and the most swank dressing rooms I ever saw--showers and fresh fruit and flowers. We were told then that we were in Avery Fisher Hall, in Lincoln Center, and there's where we performed that day, to an audience of nearly 4,000 of the rowdiest, most stoned New Yorkers I ever saw. It was the first gig I ever played with an electric bass, and I think it must have been Tom's first time on an electronic keyboard (he was strictly a piano-man in those days). It was also the largest stage we had ever been on, and we faced the most unruly crowd either of us had ever performed for. I'm sure neither of us will ever forget it!" (Source: Ken Langford, 2005. Email conversations with Bob Webb. July 22, 2004)

Costello Gymnasium: Lowell Technical Institute. Lowell/ USA. Opening for Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. Bob Webb: "On November 29th we flew to Boston. I don't specifically recall doing a gig there, though we must have gone there for a reason" (Source: Ken Langford, 2005. Email conversations with Bob Webb. July 22, 2004).

Southeastern Massachusetts University. North Dartmouth/ USA. Opening for Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

Chris Hayward (1973): "Tom Waits opened Sunday night's concert with Beret and Bass player. With or without a cigarette in his mouth his lyrics were unclear, his voice raspy and disintegrating amid the gym's echoes. I saw nothing special in his music but felt that he suffered somewhat from playing on a high stage to a large audience. In a close, small concert with clear acoustics he probably shows as a fine entertainer, being easy and intimate with the audience" (Source: KeyNote review. December 2, 1973)

End second tour promoting Closing Time
November 1973 - December 1973

Unidentified/ unverified shows 1973:
Date unknown (1973). Venue unknown. Detroit/ USA
Date unknown (1973). Venue unknown. Philadelphia/ USA
Date unknown (1973). Venue unknown. Nashville/ USA (Bob Webb, 2005)
Date unknown (1973). Venue unknown. Georgetown/ USA (Opening for Tom Rush)
Date unknown (1973). Venue unknown. Seattle/ USA (Opening for Zappa)

1974

Start third tour promoting Closing Time
February 1974 - September 1974
(opening for Frank Zappa).
Tom Waits solo: vocals, acoustic guitar, piano.

Studio recordings for The Heart Of Saturday Night
May 13, 1974 - May 22, 1974
(Wally Heider Recording. Hollywood/ USA)

Golden Hall. San Diego/ USA. Opening for Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. Very hostile crowd.

Jay Allen Sanford (2007): "When famous former neighbor Zappa returned to San Diego with his inventive Mothers, the audience was admitted while the band performed a sound check, apparently with faulty equipment. Zappa apologized for the poor sound during "Uncle Meat," "Pygmy Twylyte," "Cosmik Debris," and "Help, I'm a Rock" before concluding, "That seems to be as good as it gets." Opening act Tom Waits then took the stage with his piano. Waits performed "San Diego Serenade," along with a few other songs and an extended monologue -- boos were heard, and one audience member yelled, "Somebody shoot that fucker." Waits showed up onstage again during Zappa's set, telling his "12-inch man" joke while the Mothers played "Ol' 55." The Mothers that night included drummer Chester Thompson, who'd later play with Genesis. Three of the songs performed were unreleased at the time: "Inca Roads," "T'Mershi Duween," and "Dupree's Paradise." After the show -- captured on the bootleg LP Golden Debris -- the duo visited Waits's old job site, Napoleone's Pizza in National City, where Zappa was so impressed by the jukebox selection that he mentioned it glowingly in a subsequent interview. He told Zappa fanzine City of Tiny Lights (published out of North County), "It's a good thing I didn't know about that pizza, or that jukebox, or I might have never left San Diego." (Source: "Best San Diego Jams" by Jay Allen Sanford. San Diego Reader. October 4, 2007)

Michael C. Ford (2007): "He was so heckled and so beleagured by the rudeness of the audience that he didn't show up the next night. He just lowered the lid on the piano and went home" (Source: Michael C. Ford interview March 21, 2007 as quoted in “Lowside Of The Road: A Life Of Tom Waits" by Barney Hoskyns. Faber/ Broadway, 2009)

End third tour promoting Closing Time
February 1974 - September 1974

Start first tour promoting The Heart Of Saturday Night
October 1974 - December 1974
(album released: October, 1974).
Tom Waits solo: vocals, acoustic guitar, piano.

The Troubadour. Los Angeles/ USA. First engagement at this venue. Opening for Little Feat.

"...This has been an important night for Waits and he's not through with it yet. A couple of hours earlier, he had finished his first engagment at the Troubadour, and the songwriter/ poet singer/ actor had done well. Owner Doug Weston had just told him so in the alley as we were leaving. He wants Waits back soon" (Rolling Stone magazine, by Rich Wiseman. January 30, 1975).

End first tour promoting The Heart Of Saturday Night
October 1974 - December 1974

Unidentified shows 1974:
Date unknown (1974). Fox Venice Theatre. Venice/ USA
Date unknown (1974). Opryland. Nashville/ USA
Date unknown (1974). Castle Creek. Austin/ USA
Date unknown (July/ August 1974): Venue unknown. Redlands/ USA
Date unknown (1974): Balconny Hall. Scottsdale/ USA. Opening for John Hammond (Downbeat Magazine, February 1975. Phoenix New Times, April 5, 2001)
Date unknown (November/ December, 1974): Stables Club: East Lansing, Michigan/ USA. Opening for for Martha Reeves & The Vandellas

1975

Start second tour promoting The Heart Of Saturday Night
January 1975 - September 1975
(album released: October, 1974).
Tom Waits solo: vocals, acoustic guitar, piano.

Tom Waits: "You have to use your imagination a bit and it (spoken word) works better in some clubs than it does in others - when it's quiet up there I can usually get away with murder - so I like playing the Cellar Door, cause I can do just about anything I want up there, I can stretch out, improvise, do things, tell stories I've never told before, make something up. It's a club where you can experiment. I like that about it." (Source: WAMU Radio Interview. Date: Washington, DC. April 18, 1975)

Tom Waits: "I get tired of playing when I'm playing like at the El Mocambo club in Toronto, like a steak house or a barbecue pit. When it's just a dragged week. But a week at the Cellar Door perks up your spirits quite a bit. It's a very good club and they enforce the fact that it is a listening club, in fact they even got it on a little card that sits on the table that says, "Quiet please". Only club I've ever played where they have that." (Source: WAMU Radio Interview. Date: Washington, DC. April 18, 1975)

Live Recordings for the album Nighthawks At The Diner
July 30, 1975 - July 31, 1975
(The Record Plant/ Wally Heider Recording,.Hollywood/ USA)

Paradise Room at the Reno Sweeney. New York/ USA. Joined by Al Cohn on tenor saxophone. With Beverly Bremers.

Barney Hoskyns (2009): “Waits had a mild freakout at Reno Sweeney's when he formed the impression that the venue was a gay club. Unequivocally some would say almost gruffly heterosexual, Waits wanted to pull out of the engagement. "Tom wasn't homophobic but he thought it wasn't going to be his audience," [drummer Bill] Goodwin chuckles. "Herbie [manager Herb Cohen] called me and said, 'You gotta talk to him.' So I called him and said we had to do the gig." It's unclear whether the sight of Barry Manilow and his mother in the front row one night allayed or confirmed Waits' fears about the club's orienta¬tion. Manilow had been urged to see Waits by Bette Midler, for whom he'd played piano in the heady days when she'd enter¬tained the debauched patrons of Manhattan's Continental Baths. Writer David McGee, who'd befriended Waits in New York the previous year meeting up with him to hang out and play pool when he was in town recalls his despondency over the Reno Sweeney's shows. "It was a true nightmare for Tom," McGee says. "And I think the decision he later took to break away from the status quo in the music business and in his career was forged in the misery of that nightmare.'" (Source: "Lowside Of The Road: A Life Of Tom Waits" by Barney Hoskyns. Faber/ Broadway, 2009)

End second tour promoting The Heart Of Saturday Night
January 1975 - September 1975

Start tour promoting Nighthawks At The Diner
October 1975 - June 1976
(album released: October, 1975).
Tom Waits: vocals, acoustic guitar, piano. Frank Vicari: tenor saxophone. Dr. Fitz(gerald) Jenkins: upright bass. Chip White: drums.

Jay S. Jacobs (2000): "He was invited to perform live on the PBS show Soundstage. Heightening the thrill factor for Waits was the knowledge that he would be sharing the bill with his Iong time idol Mose Allison. The segment's highlight is the opening number, Waits's dramatic a capella performance of "Eggs and Sausage." Wearing a ratty black sports coat, a loose tie, and a brown beret, he sits at the counter of a real diner, cigarette in hand. Around him we glimpse tired waitresses, bored patrons, sizzling burgers. His only musical accompaniment is the snapping of his fingers and the slapping of his leg. Finishing the tune, he turns to a waitress and asks for another cup of coffee." (Source: "Wild Years, The Music and Myth of Tom Waits". Jay S. Jacobs, ECW Press 2000)

Soundstage/ N.N. (2005): "According to my records, the show was taped in 1975. There is a date on the slate at the front of the show (of November 3, 1975), but that date could be the date the show was edited and not taped. Unfortunately there is no way for me to know the accuracy of the date. It was Soundstage show #208 with Tom Waits and Mose Allison." (Source: email conversation Soundstage/ Ken Langford, 2005)

Unidentified shows 1975:
Date unknown (Jan./ Febr. 1975): Jupiter, Los Angeles/ USA
Date unknown (Jan./ Febr. 1975): Venue unknown. Minneapolis/ USA
Date unknown (Jan./ Febr. 1975): Venue unknown. Pittsburgh USA
Date unknown (late 1975). Craig Hospital. Denver/ USA
Date unknown (1975). Venue unknown. East Lansing/ USA
Date unknown (1975). The Exit Inn. Nashville/ USA
Date unknown: (early 1975). Lee Furr's Studios (KWFM radio) Tucson/ USA

* KLxxxx: researched by Ken Langford 

Further reading
Time Line 1949-1975
Pictures 1949-1975
For setlists, please refer to The Dutch Dogs Site