“Ladies and Gentlemen…”

If I close my eyes, I can remember the Hotel International venue, with vertical rows of tables branching out from a small horizontal stage like sunbeams, and then rows of booths cupped the edges of the table rows like ruffles, followed by a large number of scattered dinner tables.  I’d been to a Philharmonic symphony led by Zubin Mehtah, seen the Monkees at the Hollywood Bowl, and Herb Albert at the Greek Theatre, but I’d never been to a Las Vegas dinner show.

Mother tipped the maitre d’ to get us into a center booth at the end of a center row, and we four ladies were excited to see Tom and get the show on the road.  But first we had to wade through a meal, and then laugh through the comedians – The Ace Trucking Company. (Remember them from the early TV shows, with  Fred Willard being the most recognizable member from that crazy sketch crew?)

Tom Jones

The intermission seemed interminable.  While my mother and sisters enjoyed people watching, I was counting the minutes, and then the moments.  But finally, finally, those words I heard so many times on television, those words that I was willing to climb an emotional Mt. Everest to get to, stated, “Ladies and gentlemen… this is Tom Jones!”

The moment he took the stage everything and everyone disappeared.  I saw only him.  I heard only him.  Was it a typical teenage crush on a singer superstar?  Was it The Voice working like synapses in the hypothalamus of my brain, sending neurotransmitters of sound and the thrill of good feelings throughout my body?

To borrow from Katy Perry’s “Firework” lyrics, (Teenage Dream CD), Tom Jones was a human firework, and he made me go “Oh, oh, oh,” and left us all in “awe, awe, awe.”  We were all giddy with delight.  My heart danced through the night.  The Voice electrified.  The man magnetized.  The Voice was really real and I could really feel.  It didn’t seem like a teenage dream, because the singer saved me… and made my heart sing, sing, sing.

Tom Jones