A toned-down Jones?
Say it ain't so!
Not that I'm a fan of leather pants — I think if I ever tried to wear them my body would simply reject them outright, like a bad kidney. But for Tom, they work; after all, if he got up on stage singing overwrought, cheesy love songs wearing regular polyester slacks, he just wouldn't be Tom Jones. Neil Diamond, maybe.
But the pants aren't all he's giving up; he also says he's going to stop wearing open shirts and picking up the women's underwear thrown at him while he's on stage. Something must be done — if he also decides to stop swiveling his hips I'm concerned he could wind up turning into Jim Lehrer.
As you may have gathered, I'm a fan of Tom Jones in his current persona, that of larger-than-life lounge hipster. Granted, not as much of a fan as the women at the concert my wife and I saw recently in Lowell, who threw their middle-aged selves at him with such wild abandon they actually had to be carted off by his mild-mannered security entourage (they were burly, but affable — call them Heck's Angels).
Still, I think he has a great voice, real presence and, most importantly, seems to be in on the joke. Even as he's belting out "What's New, Pussycat?" to beat the band, he's giving you a look that seems to say, "I know I'm a 63-year-old man in leather pants, and I can't believe I'm up here either." If he didn't seem to realize this, instead of cool he'd probably be a little pathetic. Or Neil Diamond.
Now, when I first started going to Tom Jones concerts he was still in his spry early 50s, but I can't say I've ever seen him incite a crowd to near apoplexy like he did at the recent Lowell show. Whenever he launched into one of his '60s hits, people (mostly women) rushed the stage in what can only be described as a bouncing, screaming, panty-throwing frenzy. It was like Victoria's Secret blew up.
(Luckily, or probably by design, he spaced his hits out over the course of the evening; I think if he did "It's Not Unusual" and "Delilah" right in a row, the ensuing tumult would have ended in the Lowell Memorial Auditorium falling into the Merrimack River.)
The thought that the next time Tom comes through town he might be more sedate, sporting a tasteful Brooks Brothers suit and pretending he doesn't notice the avalanche of underwear flitting wildly at him from the balcony leaves me more than a little depressed. I guess I can't blame his son, who is also his manager, for advising him to cool it — who wants to see their dad in leather pants night after night? In fact, just saying that made me picture my dad in leather pants, and now I have to go have a stiff drink in an attempt to shake the image.
But the fact remains that at the show the Lowell crowd loved so much, Tom had his shirt open to below his chest, bumped and grinded (ground?) like a man half his age and deftly handled more than a few pairs of tossed panties. Although his pants were a material whose origin I could not determine from mid-auditorium, he was classic Tom, his adoring fans awash in his Tom-ness.
So my advice for Mr. Jones would be to keep the pants, the shirts, the panties, everything that makes him Tom — and we'll still respect him in the morning.
Although even if he doesn't, he'll still wipe up the floor with Humperdinck.