Strangers No More: L’orchestre D’homme-Orchestre performs Tom Waits

Tom Waits has never come to Calgary. Until now.

Last night, all the way from Quebec City, L’orchestre D’hommes-Orchestre came to Calgary to perform their sold out shows at the Theatre Junction Grand.

Performing on a stage cluttered with odd objects, LODHO presents music in a way no one has seen before. Using spaghetti, bottles, teacups, megaphones, even each others bodies, LODHO let their imaginations run wild to capture the bizarreness of Tom Waits. Their voices are gritty and rough and as the light shines through the crooked ceiling fan, you can’t help but be absolutely fascinated by their performance.

They climb over each other, wear bags on their head, put on lipstick to kiss the television screen, and use dominoes to maintain the beat in the song. But they also play guitars, harmonicas, banjos and accordions. They smoke cigarettes, drink martinis and interweave covers of Wait’s songs.

The second act outshone the first, as the performances got more complex. A highlight was when they all put safety helmets on, one with a golf club on it. In a complicated sequence, they high-five, ring a bell and have the golf club hit a frying pan. It would be quite a bit easier to have each individual play one instrument, but it wouldn’t be as much fun. And this show is about fun. If the audience wasn’t tapping their feet to the beat they were doubled over in laughter at the comedy put on by LODHO.

In the final act, four of the band members play one accordion while they get showered by confetti and silly string. Even before the last note was stuck the audience was already on their feet. If you walked into the theatre as a stranger to Tom Waits and his work you walked out finding that ‘you weren’t really strangers anymore’.

L’orchestre D’hommes-Orchestre performs Tom Waits,  plays at Theatre Junction tonight.  Buy tickets at hprodeo.ca

Tagged as: High Performance Rodeo, L'orchestre D'homme-Orchestre, Theatre Junction Grand, Tom Waits