TAYLOR Swift wasn’t the only one bringing her fans on a musical journey through her entire back catalogue last weekend; Tom Jones was doing the same with Ages and Stages, his version of Swift’s The Eras Tour, at The Theatre at Mediacorp on Sunday (Mar 10) evening.

Throughout the two-hour show, the 83-year-old – who doesn’t look or sound anywhere near his age – went back and forth between the classics and the new material from his latest album, Surrounded By Time (2021). 

That is over six decades worth of music compressed into a 20-song setlist, and some of the audience might have been disappointed that the Welsh singer chose to leave out some of his better-known songs in favour of tracks off the new record.

Hence, no She’s A Lady, You’re My World, Thunderball or (It Looks Like) I’ll Never Fall In Love again – the Tom Jones we all hear on local radio. Instead, we got two Bob Dylan covers (the moody Not Dark Yet and a bluesy One More Cup of Coffee) and a version of Todd Snider’s Talking Reality Television Blues, which might have left some of the hardcore Gold 90 FM listeners in the crowd scratching their heads at whom they were actually watching.

But trust Jones to know a thing or two about showmanship and do what he does best – playing up his sex-symbol status unabashedly. He purred and cooed at the ladies during You Can Leave Your Hat On and Kiss (Tan Kin Lian, watch and learn, please), and then successfully persuaded even the oldest members of the crowd to get up on their feet during Sexbomb. 

By sprinkling the oldies in between the less familiar material, he never lost the crowd for too long. Two songs into the show, he pulled out not only It’s Not Usual but also What’s New, Pussycat? – both rearranged into a rhumba that allowed Jones to also bust out some moves.

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A couple more songs from Surrounded By Time, and the audience was then treated to Green Green Grass of Home before Delilah followed a bit later – all delivered with the same gusto of his signature rich baritone from decades ago.

Make no mistake, Jones’ current Ages and Stages tour isn’t a stuck-in-time Vegas-style nostalgic stroll down memory lane filled with just the oldies (been there, done that in the 70s during his Sin City residency with Elvis Presley).

The show is one where he is still reinventing himself musically – just like he did near the turn of the millennium with Reload, in which he found a whole new generation of fans after collaborating with modern artists like Robbie Williams, The Cardigans, Portishead and more.

Surrounded By Time marks yet another era for this chameleon crooner, though it’s less upbeat and more sombre, as it finds him confronting his own mortality the way Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen also did on their final albums.

Because it is not always about getting old, it’s about doing it with dignity.