elvis costello tour 2022 review

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Elvis Costello Reconvenes With Old Friends at NYC Concert: Review

Elvis Costello  has been looking backward lately. "How have you been?" he asked the audience Thursday night at Pier 17, an outdoor rooftop venue in downtown Manhattan. "Maybe I should say:  Where  have you been?"

The singer-songwriter returned to live playing almost a year ago, but his current tour showcases songs from  The Boy Named If , an album of punchy rock 'n' roll recorded with the Imposters and released earlier this year.

Nostalgia isn't an accurate description of what Costello is doing now. He isn't pining for the good old days; instead, he's revisiting the people, places and events that brought him to where he is today.

His opening act at Thursday's show was  Nick Lowe , who produced Costello's first five albums, from 1977's  My Aim Is True through 1981’s Trust . He also wrote "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding," which Costello recorded in 1979 but Lowe first performed in 1974 with the band Brinsley Schwarz. Lowe and Costello also performed "Indoor Fireworks" and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding," marking the first time the duo has performed together on the road since 1989. "We really looked up to Nick Lowe, but he is  a lot taller than me," Costello joked onstage.

Also in attendance was Allan Mayes, who played with Costello in their first, teenage band, Rusty. Their recently released debut album,  The  Resurrection of Rust , has put Mayes, who now lives in Texas, in the spotlight after a relatively low profile over the past several decades. They performed on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon earlier this week.

Costello was backed by his band the Imposters, which includes former Attractions Steve Nieve on keyboards and Pete Thomas on drums, along with bassist Davey Faragher. Charlie Sexton on guitar, a regular member of Bob Dylan 's band, also joined Costello onstage.

He also brought Nicole Atkins, who sings on  The Boy Named If , to help out on a few songs Thursday night. Costello didn't stray far from original arrangements of songs like "Accidents Will Happen" and "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea," but with Lowe, Mayes and Atkins assisting, there was a freshness to the set. (You can see the set list from the show below.)

Still, there is some unpredictability to his concerts. Earlier this week in Buffalo, he slipped into "Alison" a snippet of the Motown song "This Old Heart of Mine," which was co-written by Lamont Dozier, who died the day before . On Thursday, he combined "Watching the Detectives" with Charles Mingus' "Invisible Lady." (Costello wrote words to Mingus' music for the 2002 album  Tonight at Noon: Three of Four Shades of Love .)

Costello intends to keep the surprises coming in 2023.  On his Tonight Show appearance ,  he announced a 10-date run at New York City's Gramercy Theatre scheduled for February that will include different songs at each performance: "200 songs over 10 nights," he said.

He may be revisiting the past on his current tour, but, as always, he's looking to the future.

Elvis Costello, 8/11/22, the Rooftop at Pier 17, New York City 1. "Accidents Will Happen" 2. "Green Shirt" 3. "Either Side of the Same Town" 4. "Hetty O'Hara Confidential" 5. "Mystery Dance" 6. "Watching the Detectives" / "Invisible Lady" 7. "You Belong to Me" (with Nicole Atkins) 8. "My Most Beautiful Mistake" (with Nicole Atkins) 9. "Still Too Soon to Know" (with Nicole Atkins) 10. "Penelope Halfpenny" 11. "What if I Can't Give You Anything but Love?" 12. "I'm Ahead If I Can Quit While I'm Behind" (With Allan Mayes - RUSTY) 13. "Surrender to the Rhythm" (With Allan Mayes - Rusty) 14. "Indoor Fireworks" 15. "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" (with Nick Lowe) 16. "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" 17. "Magnificent Hurt" 18. "Pump It Up" 19. "Alison"

Elvis Costello Albums Ranked

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Elvis Costello & The Imposters: The Boy Named If & Other Favorites Tour 2022 [Concert Review]

Brian Q. Newcomb | August 12, 2022 August 12, 2022 | Concert Reviews , Reviews

Elvis Costello & The Imposters w/ Nicole Atkins; The Boy Named If & Other Favorites Tour :  Rose Music Center; Dayton, OH; Saturday, August 6, 2022

Elvis Costello has been a singer and songwriter of note for going on 45 years, but as we were reminded at his concert on Saturday night at the Rose Music Center, he is first and foremost a storyteller. Rarely do you hear artists play music they’ve recorded through the P.A. as part of the playlist before they hit the stage, but I heard Costello’s distinctive singing voice on several alt-country sounding songs that played before he took the stage with his fine band of backing musicians, and for the several verses that played loudly through the system after the lights went down before they walked out to greet the crowd.

But shortly after the band opened the show with two songs from the 1979 release, Armed Forces – “Accidents Will Happen” and “Green Shirt,” two that he’s played consistently at live shows for some years, Costello thanked the crowd for the warm response to “Surrender to the Rhythm,” the recorded song playing as they entered, telling the story of that album’s creation, although to be honest, that applause when the lights went down had a lot more to do with getting the show started.

The concert had barely begun, but Costello was in story telling mode; he recounted a phone call from his old friend Allan Mayes, recalling how Elvis had joined his band Rusty 50 years earlier, suggesting that they should get together and “record a cassette.” Costello recalled their early days, playing anywhere folk would let them, and some places where they wouldn’t, like a Catholic girl’s school. So, Costello one upped his first bandmate and partner, saying they should record the album they would have made when they were 18, if someone had let them. In honor of the release of The Resurrection of Rust , Costello dedicated the next song to his old pal Allan, who he suggested was no doubt out playing some venue in his hometown of Austin. Then, Costello led the band into “Either Side of the Same Town,” a country ballad leaning number from one of their great, but underrated releases, ‘04’s The Delivery Man , with bass player Davey Faragher, who’s addition to the band brought the change of the name from The Attractions to the Imposters. He sang harmony vocals on the choruses, while Elvis’ vocal delivery found him screaming and howling as he killed on those high notes. The guy still has some amazing pipes.

Costello introduced “Hetty O’Hara Confidential,” about an old school gossip columnist from an era when “sin and shame were for sale,” who loses her platform in the age of social media, because “now everyone has a megaphone.” And fitting his vocal delivery, once Charlie Sexton had played a guitar solo, and Steve Nieve took one on organ, Costello played a jazz guitar solo as well, then pulled out a megaphone to deliver the final “Who’s got the dope/who’s got the potential?”

That one came from Hey Clockface , the 2020 release from solo recordings made in Helsinki with Costello playing all the instruments. Then, he added a new song to the setlist of the first time on this tour, from the very same album, the loud, angry rant of “No Flag,” which is the closest thing to Costello’s early punk influenced music recorded in many years. Given that this song was recorded completely solo, Costello playing all the instruments, it was an excellent moment to take notice of his incredible live band, now called The Imposters. The song is framed around one of those great rock guitar riffs played by Costello, framed by the pounding rhythm of Pete Thomas, who along with Steve Nieve on keyboards joined The Attractions in late 1977. Of course, Nieve had first recorded with Costello on “Watching the Detectives,” a song from Elvis’ debut album, My Aim Is True , which was next on Costello’s setlist.

On this beloved 45-year-old track, the storyteller in Costello has tended to take hold, as he tells of watching late night TV crime dramas as a child, like “The Invisible Lady,” on a black and white screen for inspiration, telling the tale while his band sizzles behind him with a rockin’ reggae beat, only to slide easily back into the song’s final verse. But staying with that early ’77 debut, the band dived immediately into “Mystery Dance,” which gave guest guitarist Sexton a chance to play out over the rockin’ rhythm, before Elvis said “go Steve go,” and Nieve pounded out those fast high-end chords of old school rock & roll piano.

After that loud jam, Costello introduced his opening act, singer Nicole Atkins back to the stage to join him on four songs. Costello put on an acoustic guitar, and they opened on a tender, light country rendering or “I’ll Wear It Proudly,” from another one of Costello’s most underrated albums, but a personal favorite, King of America , from 1986. Then, finally turning to a song from his newest release, The Boy Named If , Costello and Atkins trading verses, but really playing up the old schoolgirl group vocal sound when they get to the line about “The Marvelettes.” Then in another flash from the past, Costello led Atkins and the band through two from his 1994 album, Brutal Youth , the quieter “Still Too Soon to Know,” and the rock & roll pop chorus of “Just About Glad,” after which he sent Atkins off stage with applause from the crowd.

At this point, you could feel the energy go up a notch as Costello led his Imposters into two more from the new album, even as he told another story about the confession prior to his first communion, where he admitted to the sin of adultery, something he had no knowledge of until he encountered a new girl at school and felt something he’d never felt before. He said, “I wrote this song about her, it’s called ‘Penelope Halfpenny,” but of course it’s really about me, they’re all about me.” It was a bit of a scorcher, and Costello took a torrid, slamming solo on his Telecaster. The from the same album, one with a pop-driven melody, “What If I Can’t Give You Anything But Love?” The song heated up during the lengthy jam, with Costello turning toward Sexton as the two guitarists played off of each other, passing musical phrases back and forth.

This was followed by “Newspaper Pane,” which started out as a slow creeper, Costello talking through the song’s vivid, poetic storyline of a woman trapped in her grief, newspapers over the windows to keep out the light. The original was on Hey Clockfa ce but was recorded in New York City with jazz producer and arranger Michael Leonhart, with contributions on guitar from Bill Frisell. In the hands of the Imposters, the tensions in the song grew more intense with each verse, Costello speaking the narrative poetry through another of his effected microphones, the piece grew to a full-on rocker on the wings of Nieve’s organ parts and guitar solo from Elvis.

But before the overdriven guitar sounds entirely faded, Costello had nodded to his drummer of 45 years Pete Thomas, while quickly changing back to a Fender Jaguar guitar, and the two were half a verse into “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea,” again from his sophomore release, This Year’s Model , before the rest of the band caught up. Anyone who’s seen Costello & Co. live in recent years could no doubt feel that sudden shift to a higher gear of urgency as the band picked up momentum as they begin to build toward the concert’s climax. Costello played a screamer of a guitar solo and then while the band continued playing “Chelsea,” Elvis introduced his band, starting with bassist Farragher, who took a bass solo. Next up, “from Paris, France, the Professor Steve Nieve on organ, piano, and various and sundry keyboards,” announced Elvis in his best MC, the entertainer voice.

Then honoring the presence of the band’s special guest, Charlie Sexton, who’s produced records for the likes of Lucinda Williams, but is like best known as Bob Dylan’s lead guitarist for many years. He came on board with Elvis and the Imposters late in 2021 and will play through the summer tour. After Sexton took a couple turns around the melody on solo, Costello instructed the crowd to “stand up for the drummer,” repeatedly, but Thomas who played powerfully throughout the band’s 105 minute set, thrashed his kit briefly for emphasis, and very quickly cued Costello to play the opening killer guitar riff of their latest single, “Magnificent Hurt,” the fourth and final track of the evening from A Boy Called If , with Costello emphasizing the “hurt” each time it came around with a screaming guitar lick.

The song ended, but the music never stopped. Thomas counted out the fast four and the band launched into a crowd favorite, “Pump It Up,” always a showstopper. But again, with the crowd chanting along to “pump it up,” Elvis finished the song and Thomas counted out the beat for their set-closing number, the Nick Lowe written early hit of Costello, “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?” which again became an audience sing-along.

Costello motioned for his bandmates to come out front, side by side, and then quieting the applause, he told another story about the band’s early days, explaining that when they first played America, they only had about 35 minutes of music, and “on a good night we could get it down to 22.” He went on to explain that they did know a ballad, but they never played it because he wasn’t able to play the gentle opening licks, but since they had Charlie Sexton here tonight, did the crowd want to hear on more? Then, of course, they served up a campfire sing along version of Costello’s classic from his debut, “Alison,” which included the lyric which gave the album its title: My Aim Is True. Costello added a verse at the end, singing in his high falsetto, “I’m gonna make you love me.” He gathered up the boys in the band one more time, put on the red hat that he’d tossed aside before the band’s first song, and off they went into the night.

Nicole Atkins, a long-time indie pop and rock artist, opened the show with her band, playing 10 of her own tracks in a crisp, warm 45-minute set as the sun was beginning to set. She has a strong, powerful voice, and she started out on acoustic guitar which together with her lead guitarist’s twangy Telecaster gave her a country/Americana sound. After three songs she switched to an electric Jaguar, taking full advantage of the whammy bar. Introducing a slow number and inviting the crowd members to enter the “Ted Danson Slow Dancing Contest,” suggesting that the song went out to her high school sweetheart, Chris Isaak, who she confessed didn’t know they were dating, but she nailed that twangy warbling “Wicked Ways” sound. She closed out the set with a handful of rockier pop songs, and ended the night with a ballad, singing “You’re the One,” winning over a fair number of fans in the crowd.

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Live Review: Elvis Costello and the Imposters • Out of Space • Evanston

Elvis Costello and the Imposters

Out of Space at Canal Shores Golf Course, Evanston, IL

Friday, August 5, 2022

Review by Jeff Elbel

Elvis Costello last visited Chicago in November, previewing material from 2022’s The Boy Named If album. Fans who missed that concert at Chicago Theatre were given a second chance to experience the strength of the English singer’s fresh material on Friday in Evanston. With a less experimental approach than 2020’s worthy Hey Clockface , The Boy Named If and its songs, including driving rocker “Magnificent Hurt,” proved to be sharp-witted and emotionally potent, with stylish playing to engage any longtime devotee of Costello’s work with the Attractions or Imposters.

The set list emphasized the extreme chronological ends of Costello’s 32-album catalog. The Attractions’ first three essential albums were well represented in order to prevent general revolt among the paying public, but the heart of the show was the clutch of five new songs from The Boy Named If and Costello’s compelling banter introducing each one. There may have been no “Veronica” or “Let Him Dangle” for fans of Spike , much less the New Wave corker “Radio, Radio,” but such omissions served to amplify Costello’s commitment to artistic forward motion. The Imposters’ spin on “Hetty O’Hara Confidential” was a highlight drawn from Hey Clockface , featuring Davey Faragher’s walking standup bass line. Costello described the song as a tale of scandal and shame. “It’s for sale everywhere you look,” he added. Drummer Pete Thomas and keyboardist Steve Nieve took the studio cut’s beatbox-infused arrangement and recast it as a lively R&B-jazz romp reminiscent of Ray Charles.

Costello expressed gratitude and relief to be reconnecting with his audience post-lockdown. He also joked about his longevity, reaching 50 years in showbiz. “We’re moving into the ABBA phase,” he said, describing a transition toward sending performing holograms on tour as true impostors.

Thomas played a conga line rhythm for “The Death of Magic Thinking” from The Boy Named If . Costello described the song as reflecting a young man’s experience, “trying to discover whether that look in someone’s eyes is a look of invitation or a look of prohibition. And boy, had you better get that right.”

Four deep cuts were offered as treats for devoted fans. “Still Too Soon to Know” was an elegant tearjerker from 1994’s Brutal Youth featuring guest Nicole Atkins, who had opened the evening ahead of a sparkling set by Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets. Costello eschewed the single “Monkey to Man,” choosing “Either Side of the Same Town” to represent 2004’s The Delivery Man . The song was performed in tribute to Allan Mayes, Costello’s teenage friend with whom he first performed as part of the band Rusty. Costello and Mayes recently released The Resurrection of Rust , with the Imposters standing in for the original Rusty musicians from 1972.

Before launching the remaining rarity, Costello asked the summertime crowd at Canal Shores Golf Course the rhetorical question, “Do you wanna hear another one?” Amid enthusiastic response, Costello added, “It seems like the evening for it if we could just get the cicadas out of our mouths.” The band played a stirring version of the earnest “I’ll Wear it Proudly” from 1986 roots music gem King of America , also accompanied by Atkins. Revealing the collaboration’s impromptu nature, Costello directed Atkins’ warm alto harmonies and phrasing like a choral conductor.

Atkins also elevated the vibrant new R&B song “My Most Beautiful Mistake.” Costello introduced the duet by saying the song was about a reprehensible character on the prowl at a local diner, posing as a Hollywood screenwriter in search of work. “You can tell this is a work of imagination because it wouldn’t be anything like me at all,” Costello said with eyebrows raised.

Faragher connected deeply with Thomas during an extended romp through “Watching the Detectives,” performing under eerie green light. The pair displayed their collective chops with lively dub reggae fills that were decorated by Costello’s slashing spy-movie guitar and Nieve’s spook-show organ. The song included Costello’s boyhood memory of watching the thriller The Invisible Lady on late-night TV, tempted by a nearby package of abandoned cigarettes to try looking as cool as the hero. “You can’t get the genius back into the bottle,” repeated the singer at the song’s apex.

The Imposters’ lineup was further augmented by Austin, Texas guitarist Charlie Sexton, who defected from Bob Dylan’s band last year. Costello seemed to enjoy the additional firepower, joining the sound of his familiar customized Fender Jazzmaster with Sexton’s guitar during “Green Shirt.” The pair squared off at center stage for twin solos during the swinging and pleading, “What If I Can’t Give You Anything but Love?” Sexton shone throughout the evening, with a particularly hot solo during rowdy rock and roller “Mystery Dance” from the Attractions’ 1977 debut My Aim is True . When the spotlight turned his way, Nieve answered by uncorking a Johnnie Johnson-styled piano run. Sexton and Faragher added rich harmony to songs, including “Accidents Will Happen.”

Cartwheeling pop stomper “Penelope Halfpenny” borrowed a measure of New Wave energy from “Pump it Up.” Costello told a wry story about growing up Catholic and having to decide what sin to claim at his first pre-teen confessional, settling on adultery by the process of eliminating the other choices. The song was inspired by a teacher who fostered ideas of a rich and adventurous life, with an underlying notion that it would all work out “if you’d just be loving and kind to people.” The song’s coda brimmed with feral rock, crashing like the Kinks and the Who.

The crowd rose to its feet as the main set concluded with a raucous “Pump it Up” and a bristling version of “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding.” Nieve punctuated the latter with riffs reminiscent of “Oliver’s Army” while Sexton lashed into his chiming Rickenbacker guitar. Many hoped for a duet with the song’s author Nick Lowe, but Elvis’ second opening act had already left the building.

Any honest fan will admit a hard truth – Costello has lost a step as a concert vocalist. When he’s got his full wind and is belting rousing material like “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea” punctuated with howls or gliding falsetto, Costello sounds like the reliable rocker his audience knows and loves. When he pulls back for a melodic crooner like the night’s encore of “Alison,” cracks show via pitchy singing and phrasing that lags Thomas’ finely tuned beat. Given significant challenges, including Costello’s cancer treatment in 2018, however, it seems blessedly lucky to have the beloved artist returned to health, in good spirits, and on stage at all – and still delivering such undiminished, provocative and irresistible new material in the studio. This writer has witnessed Costello’s incrementally returning power since his first post-treatment show at Riot Fest Chicago in 2018. Here’s wishing him a continued upward trajectory in the company of his exceptional bandmates while looking forward to more new material as cracking as the songs on The Boy Named If .

Tags: Elvis Costello , Elvis Costello and the Imposters , Elvis Costello and the Imposters Out of Space Evanston , featured

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Illinois Entertainer

Review: Elvis Costello, inspired one moment, flat the next, delivered a whack-a-mole of a San Diego concert

Costello, a 2003 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, is on tour with Nick Lowe, his early mentor and album-producer. The two first shared a concert stage here in 1978 at the San Diego Civic Theatre

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Elvis Costello ran hot, cold, and lukewarm at his almost maddeningly uneven San Diego concert Wednesday night at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park.

Appearing before a near-capacity audience of 4,500 at the bayside venue, he delivered a performance that was alternately inspired and half-baked, focused and diffuse. What resulted at times seemed like several concerts combined, all delivered by an artist who boasts one of the richest, most stylistically varied repertoires of the past 45 years.

Costello’s spirit was willing and his heart was clearly in the music during most of his 96-minute performance. The 2003 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee benefited greatly from the versatility of his talent-packed band, The Imposters, which deftly balanced between pinpoint precision and jam-band fluidity.

But while Costello’s spirt and heart were in the right place, his voice was not.

His singing was so inconsistent, sometimes when delivering successive lines in the same selection — as was the case with “Radio, Radio” and “(The Angels Wannna Wear My) Red Shoes” — that it felt like a musical variation of whack-a-mole. In this case, though, the simulated carnival moles were replaced by raspy vocal clams (let’s name them Flat, Flatter and Flattest).

As a result, moments of palpable inspiration and in-tune singing alternated with off-key, pitch-challenged segments that induced winces. Or, as a multiple-award-winning San Diego singer who attended Wednesday’s performance noted in an online post on this writer’s Facebook page after the concert: “It was painful.”

When Costello’s voice remained steady and his musical aim was true, the show underscored the excellence and durability of his music, buoyed by the superb musicianship of keyboardist Steve Nieve and ace drummer Pete Thomas.

Standout songs included such early favorites as the rollicking “Pump It Up” and “Mystery Dance,” as well as an extended, noir-infused version of “Watching the Detectives” — in which Costello seemed to channel crime author Raymond Chandler by way of jazz giant Charles Mingus.

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Equally memorable was the hard-driving “Farewell, OK,” the early Beatles-flavored opening track from Costello’s 2022 album, “The Boy Named If,” and his charged rendition of “So You Want to be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” the wry 1966 classic by The Byrds co-written by former San Diegan Chris Hillman.

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But when things were off-target, as was the case at least half the time during Costello’s 103-minute performance, well — to invoke the title of his opening selection — accidents will happen.

Alas, Costello’s inconsistent singing is not new and probably no accident. He demonstrated as much during his largely one-man 2016 concert here at the Balboa Theatre, where he struggled during the first half of his nearly three-hour show, then hit his stride in the second.

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He used a similar template at The Shell, where the first 61 minutes were more miss than hit and the concluding 42 minutes were more on target. But they were not consistently enough on target to make up for all the bumps and missed notes on such songs as “Girls Talk,” “You Belong To Me,” “Truth Drug” and too many others.

To his credit, Costello took some chances, including featuring multiple songs from his new album despite the majority of his audience’s lack of familiarity with them. And he changed the arrangements of some of his best known songs, no doubt to keep them fresh for him and his band.

Costello also changed the tempo and stretched out on his 1978 song, “I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea,” giving it a more pronounced reggae beat. He then segued into “Magnificent Hurt,” a snarling, mid-tempo song from “The Boy Named If,” adding a spacey, Grateful Dead-styled instrumental improvisation that featured guest guitarist Charlie Sexton.

That Costello is a longtime Deadhead is a matter of record, never mind that his songs do not lend themselves very well to extended jams.

In some instances Wednesday, the raggedness of his voice lent added pathos to the songs. This held especially true during his heartfelt version of The Flying Burrito Brothers 1969 country-music lament, “Hot Burrito No. 1/I’m Your Toy,” and the concert-closing medley of 1977’s “Alison” — Costello’s first great ballad — and “This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You),” the 1966 Isley Brothers’ hit co-written by the recently deceased Lamont Dozier.

The concert opened with a superb, 12-song set by Nick Lowe, who produced Costello’s first five albums and was a key early mentor.

A wonderfully supple singer, Lowe shined whether crooning “You Inspire Me” — a heartfelt ballad that evoked early Elvis (Presley, not Costello) — or romping through “Cruel to be Kind” and the set-closing “I Knew The Bride (When She Used to Rock ‘n’ Roll”).

During the lilting “Without Love,” Lowe intoned one line in a deep, deep voice — an apparent homage to his former father-in-law, Johnny Cash. On “So It Goes,” Lowe’s 1976 solo debut single, he slowed the beat down to a more relaxed gait. It was a savvy move that served to diminish the original song’s striking melodic to similarity to Steely Dan’s 1972 breakthrough hit, “Reeling in the Years.”

Sadly, Lowe did not return to the stage — as he had on some previous dates on this tour — to duet on “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,” the 1974 Lowe gem that was Costello’s penultimate selection at The Shell. Perhaps the vocal contrast between the mellifluous Lowe, 73, and the hit-and-miss Costello, 68, would have been too pronounced?

Lowe was ably accompanied by his longtime collaborators, the four-man Los Straitjackets, who — as has been their tradition since 1988 — performed while wearing Mexican lucha libre wrestling masks. On a night when the temperature was 82 degrees as the concert began shortly after 7 p.m., Los Straitjackets was the hottest act on stage, literally.

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Elvis Costello and The Imposters: The Forum, Bath – live review

Costello’s usual brilliance shines through the sound murk in Bath.

When I last saw Elvis Costello & The Imposters live, in 2016, I wrote that ‘In these most surreal and unsettling of times there’s nothing like a good dose of political pop to shake up and reinvigorate the senses,’. And as nothing has changed in our beleaguered times, only got more surreal and unsettling, tonight’s gig was very much looked forward to.

In the event, it turns out to be a mixture of the sublime and the frustrating as our troubadour of the tortured tune plays through an echoey sound throughout, with some of his marvellous lyricism missed out through dodgy mics as well. Don’t get me wrong, it’s no disaster by any means, but for much of the two-hour-plus set you get the sense of listening through a fortified sound barrier, or, worse, underwater…

So it’s a big-up to Declan MacManus and the boys that their professionalism and brilliance still shone through the fudgy sound. The personal and universal in his politics have always infused his material, delivered with a creatively poppy sensibility, and in his four decades-plus of playing he’s encompassed many genres with style and loving authority, flavouring and utilising them with his own unique take.

Tonight it’s a mix of past and present, opening with Accidents Will Happen and Green Shirt, their impact only diminished by the infuriating sound problems. Much of his latest album The Boy Named If, is of course played, as it is The Boy Named If tour after all.

That records’ echoing of his early pop dynamism sits well alongside Nashville country airs, R’n’B and darker noir moods. He has an uncanny ear for the storytelling atmospheric of songs – much in the same way as, say, Tom Waits has – ably abetted as ever by the emphatic drumming of drummer Pete Thomas and the masterful inovations of keyboarist Steve Nieve, his old Attraction compadres, now Imposters.

Bassist Davey Faragher, an Imposter for a few years now, and the star-spangled inclusion of young country guitarist Charlie Sexton, Bob Dylan’s regular axeman no less, complete this most splendid of outfits.

A few numbers in and Hetty O’Hara Confidential is a fine example of this noir storytelling, complete with ’50s mic and stripped-down vernacular rock feel. Costello has a dig at the sound quality during the Death Of Magic Thinking, before Watching The Detectives is given a sublime twist, veering off its reggae base into the more storyland thematics of Invisible Lady.

Radio Radio begins with a Spanish intro, before increasing into its ecstatic finale, Big Stars Have Tumbled is a slow churner, and Brilliant Mistake from the King Of America album a gentle rumba, Costello switching mics and getting a clearer sound on his vocals for the first time.

Costello’s in a loquacious mood tonight, chatting at length in between some songs and cracking jokes in what has become a Liverpudlian accent with New York inflections – though we strain to hear exactly what he’s saying at times. ‘Shoot the soundman!’ someone yells and by coincidence or fate the sound on the glorious pop of Penelope Halfpenny improves again.

From light to darkness as What If I Can’t Give You Anything But Love? builds up its quirky aura before a long throbbing bass and big guitar outro. Costello’s numbers are mini-epics in themselves, brilliantly realised and orchestrated, memorable and marvellous, his inimitable quaver cutting through the great musicianship.

Of course we get (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes, (I Don’t want To Go To) Chelsea, and Pump It Up, all deliciously jarring Costello pop classics, the latter seguing into the epic Nick Lowe number (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding that’s become a staple of Costello’s shows at their finale.

But it’s not over yet, as he sweeps into the biographical, vaudevillian, Man You Love To Hate, also off the new album, the beautiful evergreen Alison and the grimly apt We’re All Cowards Now, from the Hey Clockface LP.

A more diverse show than the high voltage performance of a few years ago, but one that smoulders and sparks, caught fire with the melding of his indefatigable, soulful, vocals, his impeccable song-writing, the quality of his band and the moods created.

It takes more than a bad sound to keep him down.

Follow Elvis Costello on website and Facebook

Words by  Elfyn Griffith . Elfyn tweets  here

Photos by Dave Roberts.

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18 comments.

I was at the gig. The sound wasn’t bad it was atrocious. The new stuff he played has no tunes and blended into one dismal inaudible dirge. Also he needs to wise up and give some value for money. No one is interested in his new stuff particularly as its awful. Play the old music properly. Also the drummer was terrible and way too loud as was the bass.

Truly terrible gig. Sound abysmal dominated by the drummer and bass player and 80% new material was a huge error because its one long dirge. He has a cheek charging so much if he neglects to play his back catalogue. Literally no one is interested in his new material.

I was really disappointed with the sound, couldn’t hear any lyrics throughout entire show, I struggled not to switch off. For that amount of money, don’t understand how the sound people could get it so wrong. When the man shouted Shoot the Sound man I applauded as I understood his frustration.

Great review! Digested version: great gig, lousy sound

I was at the Ipswich gig last night. Atrocious sound at that gig as well. Again, so bass & kick drum heavy, everything else was lost. Decent, small venue, so no need for it to sound like a toilet. Someone needs to tell EC that his crew are amateurs. I doubt I will be paying good money to see him again. And as a fan since the beginning, that’s a shame.

I was at the Eventum Hammersmith gig last night 23/6. Same story. Sound was as mucky as standing in a wet ditch, when it wasn’t echoing off the roof! Travelled back from Dubai for this show, what a waste of time and money. Spoke to the inked lady at the mixing desk at the end of the show, who waved me away and said she was not responsible for the sound! This could be part of the problem. Elvis has delivered one of the finest solo performances I have ever seen (Dubai Media City, with his wife DK joining him at the end). This show was just awful for the sound and also for all the other reasons given above.

Same sound problems at Hammersmith Odeon – great gig nevertheless

I was also at this show and greatly enjoyed EC’s trawl through 4 decades of superb songwrting – including the recent material. I thought the bands playing was good, and thankfully the serious sound problems during the first couple of numbers seemed to be largely resolved. I’m not sure how much difference being in the circle might have made here. Anyway the performance was greatly appreciated if audience reaction was anything to go by,!

I was at the Birmingham gig and it was exactly the same, really poor sound dominated by drums. The amount of people who walked out was embarrassing to say the least.

Strange. I was at the Birmingham gig and the sound and performance were brilliant! Maybe being way up in the cheap seats helped.

Saw it in ipswich on wednesday same comments as above its the first I’ve walked out early from, a complete mess and not worth any where near the price, band awful

Disappointed at the gig, the sound was awful and it didn’t help that he didn’t play a lot of songs that we all love. Would have loved to have heard good year for the roses and she, which probably would have saved the evening for me. A shame probably the last time I will buy tickets to see him live, will still listen to his songs at my leisure instead.

I have been going to gigs since I was 14(i978) and this was the worst sound I’ve ever heard . Not sure what was going on but it was awful!! Disappointed that he did not play more of those great classic songs as that’s what most of the audience wanted . Have seen him numerous times live and usually fantastic but this gig was not good on any level

Mark Roberts I assume hasn’t even listened to his new material. Don’t Look Now, and Hey Clockface are good albums and Boy Named If has some of his best songs since Imperial Bedroom. If you want a boring greatest hits show, perhaps the 80’s weekends at Butlins are more suited to you, personally I love that he is still making new music at 67. The sound was poor though, that’s the technicians fault not his.

I was at the concert in Ipswich on Wednesday and whilst I will admit the sound on the first couple of songs was dodgy and they overpowered Elvis’ voice after that (I was in the circle) I thought it was a lot better. I certainly damn well enjoyed myself and that place was rocking with people crowding down to the front to rock with him. We were dancing in the circle and I for one WILL be in the queue for tickets to his next concert! As for new material…well ai spent a lot of time listening to his new album before the concert…so knew the songs well by then! Sad he didn’t sing She though! Waited for it.

Yep we went to Manchester Opera house, and the sound was bad due to timeing and could have done more of his older material, but that said he needs to sack the technical team and sound crewe. No Excuse for this at each venue!

We saw Elvis in Ippo too and also thought the sound was dreadful, not helped by Elvis often not singing into his mike, so his voice often just drifted away. His voice was overwhelmed by the awful mix and you couldn’t distinguish any of the lyrics, apart from on the slower songs. The new album is brilliant and as good as anything in his back catalogue but, again, was totally lost in the wall of dirgeful sound. Such a shame as I was so looking forward to seeing him and had bought Uncut’s Ultimate Music Guide to take me through all 32 of his albums! Oh well… some you win and some you lose.

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Live Review: Elvis Costello & The Imposters w/ Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets @ Wolf Trap — 8/18/22

At the end of his recent set with The Imposters at Wolf Trap, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Elvis Costello was joined by the man he called his hero, Nick Lowe, for the last two songs. Elvis wrote “Indoor Fireworks,” but Lowe was responsible for the show’s last number, “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding).”

He wrote it during his tenure with Brinsley Schwarz in the early ’70s. The band has held up well to critical scrutiny over the last five decades, but, like many of their peers in the British pub rock movement, they had limited commercial success. Costello became hip to Lowe’s work, though, and, in his memoir, Unfaithful Music , he writes about seeking out Lowe to get advice from him. Their relationship became closer when Lowe went to work as the house producer for Stiff Records, the label responsible for the British punk movement. There he worked on records by The Damned, Graham Parker, Wreckless Eric, and, of course Costello — his first five albums. On his third album, Costello dusted off “What’s So Funny,” making it the closing track of the album.

If you’re writing about this song, you have to bring up The Bodyguard . Curtis Stigers recorded it for the soundtrack — which became and remains the bestselling film soundtrack of all time, in the ballpark of 45 million copies. Lowe received a royalty check for just under a million dollars, and this was in the early ’90s. That money allowed him to record The Impossible Bird  the way it needed to be done. The album drew critical acclaim and breathed new life into his career.

In his opening set for Costello at Wolf Trap on Aug. 18, Nick broke out one of those songs, “I Live On A Battlefield,” a devastating portrayal of a couple falling apart.

Stream “I Live On A Battlefield” by Nick Lowe on YouTube:

Lowe’s opening set had its share of pageantry. He’s backed by Los Straitjackets, a surf rock revival band who wear lucha libre (Mexican wrestling) masks. That sounds like it could be a joke, but it’s not. These guys can really play. Lowe has a uniquely sardonic, off-kilter wit, tied to a love of old-school rock and pop, and that makes for a pretty good match with this band.

Lowe has an extensive songbook, and he had limited time on stage. He started out with some of his more recent material — recent in terms of a 50+ year career: “So It Goes,” “Raging Eyes,” and “Without Love.” He’s said that “You Inspire Me” was itself inspired by the movie As Good As It Gets , where Jack Nicholson says the line, “You make me want to be a better man.”

After “Tokyo Bay,” a cut from a recent EP, he left the stage to make a quick costume stage, and Los Straitjackets took over, playing a few instrumentals. When Lowe returned, they performed “Trombone,” then delivered on a few of his much older, classic cuts to close the set: “Half A Boy and Half A Man,” “Cruel To Be Kind,” and “When I Write The Book.” That last one was a cut with Rockpile, a band Nick was in with Welsh roots rocker Dave Edmunds; they did some  excellent work, and they have an interesting, complicated history as a result of music business legal machinery.

If he’s only had brief flirtations with mainstream success, Lowe’s place in history is secure. He’s a major figure in pub rock, punk, and Americana. Costello has achieved that mainstream success while working in, if anything, an even more diverse range of musical styles: His catalog includes collaborations with pop composer Burt Bacharach and legendary New Orleans composer and producer Allen Toussaint. Costello’s father, Russ, sang in big bands; one of the delights of his memoir is seeing just how involved he was in that world, even as his parents split up in the face of his father’s infidelity.

The constraints of live performance prohibited Elvis from displaying his full musical range. One of his more recent releases, Spanish Model , features guest artists covering This Year’s Model , but with the lyrics in Spanish; obviously, it’s not practical to recreate it on the road. But Elvis did have an excellent vocalist with him in Nicole Atkins, who we covered here last month , and who makes fantastic music of her own. Nicole joined Elvis at the front of the stage during the middle of the set to duet on “My Most Beautiful Mistake” and “Still Too Soon To Know.” That first song hails from Elvis Costello & The Imposter’s 2022 album, The Boy Named If, released by EMI Records.

Stream “My Most Beautiful Mistake” by Elvis Costello & The Imposters (with Nicole Atkins) on YouTube:

Speaking of who he had with him, Charlie Sexton, who’s also worked extensively with Bob Dylan and a whole slew of critical favorites, played guitar. I can confirm that Charlie is still quite tall, very good looking, and has exceptional hair. If you saw the movie Blaze , you’d know him for having played Townes Van Zandt. Steve Nieve, who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Imposters, played keyboards and synthesizers.

If Costello’s musical style is diverse, he lyrics are just as broad. “Watching the Detectives” is a noir story. “Either Side of the Same Town” is from The Delivery Man , his 2004, rootsy, maybe even Americana concept album about a murderer who gets out of prison. This is where I came on board with Elvis; I saw him at Austin City Limits that year (along with Patty Griffin, Sheryl Crow, Joe Ely, and The Neville Brothers). It’s his spin on the classic trope of the two sides of the tracks.

People give John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats) rightful credit for making an entire album entirely about professional wrestling ( Beat The Champ makes you feel for the human stories of the men behind the wrestlers, and it’s great), but Costello had already written a song influenced by the “sport” of kings: “The Man You Love To Hate.” When Costello — birth name Declan MacManus — was a child, there was a wrestler in the local circuit — and these things were very, very local — “The Man You Love To Hate” Mick MacManus. People would ask his grandmother if they were related, and she hated it. It stuck in his head though, “The Man You Love To Hate.” Earlier in his career, he even came to identify with it — he was something of an enfant terrible.

As terrible as he may have been, there’s no denying the deep feeling in his songs, like “Penelope Halfpenny,” about a teacher he had around the age of 13. That one is from this year’s LP, The Boy Named If. Before the song, he described the teacher as somewhat out of her element, unlikely to remain in the field for any length of time. But though she was unsuited to the job, she instilled in the students a sense that would everything would be okay if they would just be kind.

The set featured many of Elvis classic hits — “Mystery Dance” from My Aim Is True , “Pump It Up,” from this Year’s Model , “Accidents Will Happen” and “Green Shirt” from Armed Forces , and some great ballads: “What If I Can’t Give You Anything But Love?” and “Magnificent Hurt.”

I know Elvis has a sense of humor, so I’m going to end with a joke, just for him. In his memoir, he says he never wanted to make My Aim Is Still True . Now that he’s pushing 70, he’s probably happy just to hit the bowl.

[…] Jones and Midge Ure, 9:30 Club (Review + Photos) 7/19 The Cult, The Anthem (Brief Recap + Photos) 8/18 Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe, Wolf Trap (Review only) 8/21 Blondie and The Damned, The Anthem (Review only) 8/22 The Fixx, The Birchmere […]

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Elvis Costello and the Imposters Plot Summer Tour

By Althea Legaspi

Althea Legaspi

Elvis Costello and the Imposters are hitting the road this summer in support of their new album The Boy Named If. Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets are special opening guests at select shows; it’s the first time longtime collaborators Costello and Lowe have toured together since 1989. Nicole Atkins will serve as an opener in Huber Heights, Ohio, and Buffalo, New York. Tickets go on sale Friday.

“Pete Thomas, Steve Nieve, and I have been spinning around like your favorite 45rpm for 45 years, and let’s be clear, Davey Faragher isn’t anyone’s deputy,” Costello said of his bandmates in a statement. “The Attractions could have no more made The Boy Named If than we have any desire to time travel back to the Seventies. This is happening right now in 2022, we are coming at you, big as life and twice as ugly.”

The tour kicks off Aug. 6 at Rose Music Center at the Heights in Huber Heights, and wraps up in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the Theater at Virgin Hotels on Sept. 3, with additional dates to be announced soon.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone , Costello discussed the reason behind exploring the various stages of life in The Boy Named If . “I do have boys that will be 15 next week, and an elder son who’s in his forties, so I have the perspective on some of these transitions,” he explained. “And I lost my father 10 years ago; I lost my mother early last year. Those things will tend to make you think about yourself as a child because now you’re promoted by that event in some way.”

Elvis Costello and the Imposters Summer Tour Dates

August 6 – Huber Heights, OH @ Rose Music Center at The Heights^ August 8 – Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall* August 9 – Buffalo, NY @ Artpark Amphitheater^ August 11 – New York, NY @ The Rooftop at Pier 17* August 12 – Bensalem, PA @ Xcite Center at Parx Casino August 13 – Ledyard, CT @ Foxwoods Resort Casino August 15 – Boston, MA @ Leader Bank Pavilion* August 16 – Northampton, MA @ The Pines Theater* August 18 – Vienna, VA @ Wolf Trap* August 23 – Denver, CO @ Levitt Pavilion* August 25 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Sandy Amphitheater* August 28 – Thousand Oaks, CA @ Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza* August 30 – Anaheim, CA @ City National Grove of Anaheim* September 2 – Paso Robles, CA @ Vina Robles Amphitheatre* September 3 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Theater at Virgin Hotels*

^ Nicole Atkins opening * Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets opening

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REVIEW: Elvis Costello wows Birmingham crowd with thrilling Symphony Hall show

Veteran British musician Elvis Costello rocked Birmingham’s Symphony Hall audience with a dynamic and classy performance on Monday night.

Elvis Costello’s The Boy Named If & Other Favourites tour stopped off at Symphony Hall last night (13 June) with a show that brought the crowds to their feet.

Regarded as one of the major acts of the British punk and new wave scene from the 1970’s and into the 80’s, Costello has been entertaining fans for decades and he shows no sign of stopping anytime soon judging by his exciting and pulsating performance in Birmingham.

His new tour – with his band The Imposters – stopped off at Symphony Hall with a show that delighted the audience and had people getting up and dancing.

The night started off with supporting act Ian Prowse – a singer whose music was championed by the late John Peel. Prowse paired down songs had elements of folk music woven into them.

The Symphony Hall crowd was very receptive to Prowse’s music and his performance laid the foundation for Elvis Costello and The Imposters to take to the stage.

The audience clapped with appreciation as Costello and the band (Davey Faragher, Steve Nieve, Charlie Sexton and Pete Thomas) emerged into the spotlight and took up their positions to unleash a show of such extraordinary musical energy that the auditorium reverberated with applause and members of the audience rose to their feet and started dancing and clapping in tune with the songs.

Costello is a musical chameleon who has successfully ploughed through various musical styles over his long career. This talented and highly-respected singer-songwriter has composed songs in musical genres such as modern classical, soul, jazz, country and folk.

Costello’s new show is peppered with songs from a long and varied career and also includes tracks from his critically-acclaimed new album The Boy Named If & Other Favourites.

Despite nearing 70-years – Costello turns 68 this August – he showed absolutely no sign at all of slowing down or taking things easy as he leaped from song to song with barely a second to draw breath before the end of one song faded and the intro to the next track kicked in.

He seemed to be full of beans, all energy and swagger, and constantly changed guitars as he journeyed through his vast catalogue of songs. His natural charisma was infectious and the crowd responded with pleasure whenever Costello spoke to the Birmingham audience as the epic show worked towards a thrilling climax.

Despite running for almost two hours the show moved along at breakneck speed with barely an idle moment or . The lighting for the show was spectacular with brilliant use of strobes that dazzled and bounced off the stage and zipped around the vast auditorium. Beautiful green glows wrapped around Costello, glittering and shining, with lights merging into various colours and then dancing around the stage in tune with the music being played by the band.

The legendary and much-admired acoustics at Symphony Hall did justice to Costello’s superlative vocals, and every guitar string and drumbeat was distinctly audible.

The level of energy displayed by the elegantly dressed Costello on the Symphony Hall stage would test the strength of a musician decades younger yet Costello carried on with perfect ease. This was a suave Don Giovanni who easily seduced and wowed the audience with his natural charm. The thunderous and rapturous applause that erupted around Symphony Hall as the concert ended was evidence that this was a very special night of live music.

Peace, love and understanding were themes that flowed through the music and they reflected the powerful and potent message that Costello conveyed to the Birmingham audience.

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Rock Concert Review: Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe — The Rewards and Hazards of Reinterpretation

By Clea Simon

Age certainly wasn’t an issue in terms of energy. Elvis Costello played for a solid two hours with barely a break, running through four decades of music with a heavy emphasis on the old favorites.

Elvis Costello and the Imposters, Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets, Leader Bank Pavilion on August 15

Elvis Costello. Photo: Steve Carlson via Elvis Costello Facebook

Forty-five years after his commercial debut with his album My Aim Is True , Elvis Costello has compiled one of the great rock-pop catalogs. Songs like “Watching the Detectives” and “Alison” are instantly recognizable, classics of the genre. And, thus, it’s understandable that the artist (born Declan MacManus) might want to play around (more so, even, than he did in 1986’s wonderful “Spinning Wheel” tour, where songs were chosen at random). On Monday night at the Leader Bank Pavilion, he did just that — on the heels of a new album, A Boy Named If, with decidedly mixed results. ( Arts Fuse review of A Boy Named If )

There were other factors on Monday, as the almost-68-year-old took the stage: for starters, the condition of his voice, which has been taxed by both age and cancer treatments. To my ears, Costello’s main instrument has recovered somewhat since his last tour. The singer displays greater range and even some of his falsetto has returned. Unfortunately, that was undercut by intonation issues severe enough that this listener wondered if the stage sound was inaudible.

Nick Lowe. Photo via Nick Lowe Facebook

Age certainly wasn’t an issue in terms of energy. Costello played for a solid two hours with barely a break, running through four decades of music with a heavy emphasis on the old favorites. Kicking off with “Accidents Will Happen,” he waded through the often muddy mix, calling out keyboardist Steve Nieve (who finally surfaced from the muck with some notable solos). More to the point was the question of his artistic interpretation, which often worked — though it sometimes made the extended set drag. For example, a slight reworking of “Watching the Detectives” maintained the tune’s dark and brooding tone, stretching out the stinger via a half-rapped extended story about a film noir. It was perfectly in keeping with the original song, but a bit long. “Mystery Dance,” of the same era, was worked into more of a rave-up. The result was that the sharp, fast song grew a bit mushy, losing its sarcastic edge.

The set began to turn around with one of the new numbers, “Penelope Halfpenny.” Introducing it as a remembrance of a teacher who showed the young Declan the possibility of a larger, freer world, the upbeat rocker was likewise a breath of fresh air. When opener Nick Lowe joined Costello for his own “(What’s So Funny) About Peace, Love and Understanding,” the reenergized vibe continued, although as the two traded verses it was nearly impossible not to hear the contrast between Lowe’s on-key singing and Costello’s, which was often not.

The final portion of the night showcased another contrast, one in approach. For, although an artist has the right to interpret his or her older material, he or she should also learn to trust those songs. Closing the show, Costello seemed at last to do just that, ripping through a set’s worth of tunes pretty much as they were originally released. Exceptions were made for older voices and for changes in personnel, such as the addition of Austin, Texas (and Dylan regular) guitarist Charlie Sexton, who threw in the occasional country-tinged flourish. Starting with “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea” and working through “Pump It Up” and “Radio, Radio,” Costello was on fire. This wasn’t the nostalgia part of the evening — the new “Magnificent Hurt” fit in beautifully, with its sardonic wail, as did “Farewell, OK.” By the time Costello began closing things down with “Alison,” from whose lyrics the title of his debut album was cribbed, the artist and the art seemed in sync again — if not always perfectly in tune.

Opening with a too-short set, the always courtly Nick Lowe loped through much of his own considerable catalog, showcasing the country side of tunes like “And So It Goes” and “Raging Eyes.” Backed by Los Straitjackets (who highlighted their own mini-set with “My Heart Must Go On” from Titanic ), he even found a Tejano take on “Half a Boy and Half a Man.” This was reinterpretation done subtly, and it worked.

Clea Simon’ s most recent novel is Hold Me Down (Polis). She can be reached at www.CleaSimon.com .

18 Comments

Thank you for an honest review When I ventured to remark that EC had a problem fans much younger than myself took umbrage claiming that his vocals were beyond criticism This has been evident for over five years. However I had no knowledge of throat cancer. Thad was a revelation and I hope it is in remission. I’ve been a fan since early 1977 and always wallowed in his vocal expertise.

Not throat cancer, Rob. Prostate cancer, which was reportedly caught early and we hope successfully treated, but I’d heard speculation that the treatment (chemo? I don’t know) may have contributed to his vocal problems. Pure speculation, but I wanted to make allowances (now reading it through, I see how I kept adding “a bit” to soften things). Thanks for the support.

Hi Rob I’ve seen Elvis over 50 times beginning from the early 80s…just 6 years ago during his solo “Detour” shows I thought he was at his peak as a singer and performer… Sadly My rock hero is a shell of his former self… EC can’t sing any longer… I saw his tour last year and almost left in the middle I was bored… Two night ago I saw his performance in San Diego.. His voice was better than last last year… It had improved from the sound of a fingernails down a chalkboard To A frog’s croak… It hurts writing this since I am a lifelong fan… I felt bad as I left the San Diego show…it was Packed and none of the concert goers had seen the REAL EC… Heck our Elvis singing “It’s Time” solo on YouTube… It’s a phenomenal performance

Good review. I saw show at Wolf Trap a couple of nights later and it was about the same. Some of the arrangements were too long, though the highlight of the evening was his reworking of “Hetty O’Hara Confidential”.

I also saw the show at Wolf Trap. Nick Lowe stole the show. I think Elvis should open for him. Lowe’s voice remains outstanding and Los Straightjackets were incredible. EC didn’t read the crowd well – and his rant during “watching the defectives” was painful. Elvis you are not Patty Smith….. I do applaud his energy – but wish we could have heard more classic tunes and a bit more of his iconic voice. Also think EC should have given Lowe credit for writing “what’s so funny”. One of the great songs , and they sang it well together but give credit where credit is due.

Voice quality aside the bane of most shows is being at the mercy of whomever runs the sound board. Even when sitting near it I find the vocals are sacrificed

The guy is 68 and has cancer, what did you expect. Not many people would be able to do what he did or does for 2 hours every night. It is what is, to rip the guy for not being 200 percent vocally doesn’t make sense.

As a critic, it’s my job to give an honest evaluation. Plenty of people enjoyed the show, but, yeah, it is what it is (and fwiw, Nick Lowe is 73.)

I also saw the show at Wolf Trap. Ditto to everything Pat & Brad said.

Agree with everything re: overlong arrangements and EC’s stage patter. It may have been my seats but the sound was abysmal. Too bass heavy, bass drum too loud and too much echo. EC’s Jazzmaster was very distorted and unclear when songs would have benefitted from cleaner tone. People in our area had fingers in their ears, as did I oft-times. We left before end basically because the volume and mix was too painful. I’ve never had that problem before at Wolf Trap.

A well-written and thoughtful review, thanks.

I saw the show in Selbyville, DE, the last stop on their East Coast tour. The sound was great — much better than the Boston show. The set list was the same EXCEPT Nick and EC did not do a duet on “What’s So Funny” and “Indoor Fireworks.” I was extremely disappointed. Although I have been an EC fan from the beginning, Nick is my favorite.

I’ve often compared EC’s voice to that of eating dark chocolate. Rich, full of biting flavor, meltingly delicious and My ears devour it!! Nick’s voice is like adding the ripest tastiest fruits to that chocolate. Always great to hear the two come together.

Watched elvis and the imposters at ipswich earlier this year we were also joined by many who walked before the end, dreadful sound and new material needs ditching also over priced

I found the show disappointing with respect to the song selections. Yeah, the sound and his singing was off at times, but I thought that was inconsequential. The bigger issue for me was there were a lot of songs that were unfamiliar to me that went on too long. Perhaps his more serious fans or music aficionados were entertained. But I talked to a bunch of people (strangers) during the show and the walk back to the hotel, and they didn’t like a lot of the material or the pace of the show (too slow). I think people wanted more nostalgia. We all agreed Nick Lowe was terrific and his set was way too short.

Thanks for the well-written review. I saw the show in NYC and my impressions were very similar. I also agree with another commenter that Hetty was terrific.

Interesting comment about “unfamiliar” material. I’ve read other comments that the middle of the show dragged because there was too much new stuff. Elvis is a songwriter with new material, so it’s understandable that he would want to perform it. And the sequencing seemed about right: play the hits at the beginning and end and play the new stuff in the middle. I do remember people sitting near me at a U2 show at Boston Garden complaining that they were playing too much of “the new stuff.” “Remember what got you here!” one fan shouted. The new stuff was “Achtung Baby.”

Ah, Elvis C.

I’m chastened for nay saying E.C.’s damaged vocals before considering the reasons. Sadly, it now makes sense.

The problem for those who admire Costello are the countless shows where he was so outstanding. Having borne witness to his 5 straight nights in 1985 (?!) at the Beverly Hill’s Beverly Theater, the bar became set so high that I presumed he’d always be that singer. Now, it appears a giant like Costello may have to actually stop performing. He’s just too painful to watch.

Makes one wonder how Morrissey – at this late date – still maintains such live vocal strength. Not many of these power houses left who consistently put it over.

By the way, Nick Lowe is timeless.

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Recent posts, coming attractions: may 5 through 21 — what will light your fire, film review: “i saw the tv glow” — nostalgia trap, film review: “nowhere special” — searching for a heart of gold, film review: “the old oak” — still standing tall, film review: “challengers” — match point.

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Elvis Costello and the Imposters: The Boy Named If review – the glory days recaptured

(EMI) With the punch and pace of yore and the depth and richness of maturity, the singer-songwriter is back at his best

F our-and-a-half decades into a constantly evolving career, Elvis Costello seems to have come full circle. After the lavish reissue of 1979’s Armed Forces in 2020, and last summer’s reappraisal of This Year’s Model with Spanish-language guest singers , The Boy Named If also locates itself very firmly in Costello’s late-70s/early-80s purple patch.

There’s a real punch to most of the 13 songs here, the Imposters rocking hard and rolling back the years to infuse the taut arrangements with real urgency. Winning melodies abound, particularly on Mistook Me for a Friend and the title track, about an imaginary friend who can be blamed for all of one’s misdeeds. As ever with Costello, there is a richness to the lyrics, and as on 2018’s Look Now , his protagonists are on occasion female: the pretty tune of The Difference conceals a kernel of darkness, with an abused daughter committing patricide.

Equally thought-provoking is Paint the Red Rose Blue, which details the death of a relationship (this time from a male perspective). Even when the tempo drops, the quality doesn’t, the rich imagery of Trick Out the Truth being a case in point. Effortlessly classy.

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Elvis Costello's Phoenix performance was an emotional rollercoaster in the very best way

Seeing Elvis Costello share a bill with Nick Lowe is always a special occasion for anyone at all familiar with Costello’s storied past, holding out the promise of the two old friends sharing the spotlight before the night is through.

On Father's Day at Arizona Financial Theatre in Phoenix, that moment arrived as Costello was nearing the end of a brilliant, unpredictable performance whose more surreal moments were further enhanced by the sweltering heat inside a theater whose air conditioning unit appeared to have taken the holiday off to spend time with its family.

After leading the Imposters in a breathless trip through “Pump It Up,” Costello welcomed the tour mate who produced his first five albums back on stage to trade off verses on the last two songs — “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” (a bit of a given for those who know who wrote it) and “Alison."

Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe sounded great on 'Alison'

Lowe even did the monologue from his original recording of “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” with British pub-rock legends Brinsley Schwarz: “We must have peace. More peace and love. If just for the children. Of a new generation.”

As a longtime fan of both acts, I may have lost it at "We must have peace."

Lowe also sounded right at home slipping into the spotlight on the second verse of “Alison,” providing a more wistful reading of the lines, especially “Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking when I hear the silly things that you say.”

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Elvis Costello's setlist featured 'Pump It Up' and other 'This Year's Model' classics

Costello and Lowe arrived in Phoenix on the wonderfully titled We're All Going on a Summer Holiday Tour, which takes its name from the opening line of “The Beat” from the headliner's iconic second album, "This Year's Model."

“The Beat” was one of several songs he did from “This Year’s Model” (including two that only showed up on one side of the Atlantic or the other) — the previously mentioned “Pump It Up,” “Radio Radio” and “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea.”

Costello also led the Imposters, whose ranks have once again been fleshed out for the road with guest guitarist Charlie Sexton, through three highlights of his first release, “My Aim is True,” setting the tone for the show with a rollicking “Mystery Dance.”

But the Phoenix concert wasn't just an Elvis Costello greatest hits tour

And yet, it never felt much like a greatest hits tour or a case of someone resting on his laurels.

He dusted off four songs from last year’s model, “The Boy Named If” — including a transcendent “What If I Can’t Give You Anything But Love?” and a magnificently wounded “Magnificent Hurt.”

He also whisper-sang his way with sinister glee through the chorus of a brilliantly delivered “Hetty O’Hara Confidential” from his previous release, “Hey Clockface,” and led the Imposters through a swinging rendition of the unreleased “Like Licorice on Your Tongue.”

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Reinventing Elvis Costello's classic songs

What really made it nothing like a greatest hits show, though, was the way he and his bandmates approached those older classics — taking liberties, if you will, with the arrangements and the phrasing of his lyrics.

These were not Bob Dylan-level reinventions, mind you, where you’re halfway through the song before the crowd applauds whatever tell-tale sign reveals the song’s identity.

They were just different enough to keep it interesting for the musicians, three of whom have been on board since the Attractions days — Costello, keyboard wizard Steve Nieve and drummer Pete Thomas with resident “new guy since 2001" Davey Faragher in for Bruce Thomas on bass.

“Accidents Will Happen” was transported to a jazz club, a tortured rendition that found Nieve accompanying the singer on piano and the other players sitting that one out until the haunting psychedelic outro.

Costello sat (“so I can get a good look into your wicked eyes”) for “Almost Blue,” playing loose with the phrasing on a somehow more dramatic version than the one on “Imperial Bedroom” and bringing the jazzy arrangement to a close with a line from “All or Nothing At All,” a song made popular by Frank Sinatra in the ‘40s.

“Waiting for the End of the World” was reimagined in the film-noir shadows, Costello never actually delivering the singalong chorus in full and Nieve adding train sounds on his keyboards to complement the lyrics.  

It was a night of brilliant playing, from Costello's lead guitar to Steve Nieve

They spent much of the night stretching out the arrangements, at times straying into territory more associated with the Grateful Dead.

Costello himself has evolved through the years into quite the adventurous lead guitarist, landing on the perfect unexpected note more times in one performance than most lead guitarists get to in a lifetime.

Nieve's playing was as awe-inspiring as ever, if occasionally overpowered in the mix. The man remains an unsung genius. And Sexton is clearly no slouch in the guitar department.

There were moments when the vocals didn't land exactly as intended but overall Costello was in fine voice and remains one of the more expressive singers of his generation.

In a review of the opening night of this year’s tour, Costello was quoted as saying, “We’re altering songs in some foolish and fantastic ways.” At this point in the tour, it was that willingness to be revealed as fools that led to many of the concert's most fantastic moments.

Other highlights ranged from an epic rendition of “When I Was Cruel No. 2” with Nieve on melodica at first before slipping the melody to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” into the arrangement on piano, to Costello’s breathtaking delivery on the Paul McCartney co-write “So Like Candy.”

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Elvis Costello remains a wildly entertaining, at times hilarious, showman

Through it all, Costello’s sense of showmanship came shining through, setting up songs with a seemingly endless supply of hilarious anecdotes.

His tale of being made to tour with Eddie Money because they shared a U.S. label was off to a crowd-pleasing start before it even dovetailed into how Bruce Springsteen’s early songs informed Costello’s idealized vision of America.

“Where I went to the seaside, in Liverpool, when I a kid, there was just a sad donkey tied to a post,” he recalled.

“So all these songs about Roy Orbison playing on the radio, it sounded like incredible magic to me ... I was so impressed by all this American romanticism.”

So they show up in Asbury Park on that first tour.

“I thought, 'Bruce Springsteen is a (expletive) genius.' He made it sound like the most magical place on earth ... And you know what I found at the end of the boardwalk? A telescope. And you put 25 cents in it and you could occasionally see the sea. And there’s a (expletive) donkey tied to a post.”

He also reflected a bit on his rep as the angry young man of the New Wave era.

“I was a little bit vexed,” he said. “I wasn’t really angry. I was a bit miffed.”

Best of all, it felt like he was having fun. And that enthusiasm was contagious.

Nick Lowe proved the perfect tourmate leading Los Straitjackets

Nick Lowe was his usual charming self in an opening set that found him backed by the men in the Mexican wrestling masks, Los Straitjackets.

“Our boss, Mr. Costello, has engaged us to warm up the house, in show-biz parlance, which really means play some music while you guys find your seats,” Lowe explained with expert comic timing.

He set the tone with his first solo record, “So It Goes,” done in a much more leisurely fashion than the original, following through with two more early classics, “Raging Eyes” and a “Without Love” that really played to that song’s country leanings. 

Lowe’s performance really hit its stride, though, when he moved on to material from the albums he’s released since settling into a gentlemanly vibe on 1995’s “The Impossible Bird,” from the melancholy balladry of “House for Sale” and “I Live On a Battlefield” to the gently rollicking “Tokyo Bay.”

Lowe ceded the spotlight to Los Straitjackets for a two-song instrumental interlude while he changed clothes, eventually bringing his set to a crowd-pleasing finish with “Cruel to Be Kind” and Rockpile’s “When I Write the Book.”

Elvis Costello's 2023 setlist in Phoenix

"Mystery Dance"

"Hetty O'Hara Confidential"

"Radio Radio"

"When I Was Cruel No. 2"

"Accidents Will Happen"

"Almost Blue"

"Like Licorice on Your Tongue"

"So Like Candy"

"Waiting for the End of the World"

"Man Out of Time"

"(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea"

"The Death of Magic Thinking"

"What if I Can't Give You Anything but Love?"

"The Man You Love to Hate"

"Magnificent Hurt"

"Pump It Up"

"(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" (with Nick Lowe)

"Alison" (with Nick Lowe)

Reach the reporter at  [email protected]  or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter  @ EdMasley.

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Elvis Costello & The Imposters, Brighton Dome review - screams, not whispers | reviews, news & interviews

Elvis costello & the imposters, brighton dome review - screams, not whispers, elvis costello & the imposters, brighton dome review - screams, not whispers, a full-on elvis offers punk thunder and a saving touch of intimacy.

The usherette’s hands are clamped over her ears, and Elvis Costello is playing like it’s 1996, when the briefly reunited Attractions played a pummelling last stand, burying fatal internal rifts with punk thunder.

The Imposters – the Attractions with recalcitrant bassist Bruce Thomas replaced by Davey Faragher – have lately crowned their own long association with a brace of acclaimed albums increasingly resembling the clenched, agile music made in Costello’s initial pomp. Their 2020 UK tour even returned to the sticky-floored, standing-room halls of those ferocious days – the Liverpool Olympia in Elvis’s childhood neighbourhood of West Derby, playing a last, poignant show for his mum, and the Sunderland Empire. There were soulful backing singers then, as empathetic regret laced the resurgent roar.

This opening date of Costello’s UK return is a different kind of show, with the Brighton Dome all-seated, and the bar closed. It’s disconcerting as the band’s fuzzed-up urgency is met by immobile rows, a ritual bond sundered by rock’s respectability and ageing adherents. Backing singers are also out, and Dylan’s long-time  foil,  Texan guitarist Charlie Sexton, in.

The country-soul Elvis and the Imposters explored on one of their best records, The Delivery Man (2004) – represented tonight by forlorn ballad “Either Side of the Same Town” – is the main stylistic counterpoint to their rock attack.

Costello has been in Brighton for a few days before this gig, and the Jubilee weekend gets wryly hostile barbs – misjudging some moods in a relieved, communal moment, but maintaining an abrasive nature undimmed by what he calls “that worthless gong”, the OBE accepted in a tangle of human contradictions that Elvis, now aged 67, has also grown to admit.

King of America ’s “Brilliant Mistake” is taken as a ballroom rumba, Thomas switching to soft mallets, and Costello clinging to his crooner’s mic, where he interpolates Depression-era ballad “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, in which Al Dubin’s Costello-worthy lyric leaves “my soul behind me, in an old cathedral town”. “Watching the Detectives” is a Sixties beat group B-movie, arranged by Nieve’s keyboard art, and lit red like murder. But it’s “The Comedians”, a song from Costello’s Eighties nadir, which suddenly locates that time’s atmosphere, with its brutality and sorrow, betrayal and shame: showbiz with a miasma of Thatcher.

A raging “Pump It Up”, Nieve stabbing his keyboard with the crowd happily on its feet, and an epic “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” are the usual finale, shorn now of “Oliver’s Army”, the nuances of one of its words in an absolutist time having defeated even Elvis.

The intimacy that’s really been absent becomes clear just before that. “We’ve got to live for the moment,” Costello says. “And this is one of those moments.” And he sings “Alison”, mixed with The Boy Named If ’s “Mr Crescent”, the lancing pains of sex and love enduring through his songbook. It’s lonesome, blue country-soul, which drops down to just Elvis shadowed by Sexton, as tears well. Costello’s talent as a sometimes political balladeer has proved his most profound songwriting strength. Amidst the screams, whispers were missed.

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Elvis Costello & the Imposters Are Still Blasting Away

With his longtime bandmates, the English songwriter noisily demolishes illusions on “The Boy Named If.”

By Jon Pareles

During the pandemic, plenty of musicians have unveiled their quieter, scaled-down, more reflective sides. Elvis Costello, typically, had other ideas.

His 2020 album, “Hey Clockface,” was a high-contrast miscellany: urbanely retro acoustic pop , bruising rockers, otherworldly electronics. For “Spanish Model” in 2021, he gathered Spanish-speaking rockers to translate lyrics and replace his own vocals on the tracks from “This Year’s Model,” his fierce, punky 1978 album with the Attractions. Apparently revisiting the Attractions at their most aggressive sparked something. On “The Boy Named If,” Costello is rejoined by his perennial band the Imposters — the original Attractions with a replacement bassist — for songs that kick hard and deep. It’s anything but quiet.

“The Boy Named If” has an elaborate superstructure. Its deluxe version adds an 88-page book written and illustrated by Costello: “The Boy Named If and Other Children’s Tales.”

It’s not made for children, though. Each song gets a prose vignette — sometimes fleshing out the lyrics, sometimes sketching alternate scenarios — alongside bright, blocky, big-eyed drawings. The vignettes, like the songs, are full of Costello’s jumpy wordplay, and they involve lust, infidelity, violence, predation, betrayal, deception, self-deception and other grown-up pastimes.

The situations and wordplay are knotty; often, they crash youthful illusions into adult disillusion. The album’s stomping title track posits a lucky, seductive, elusive imaginary friend, “the boy named If,” who always escapes consequences. In “What if I Can’t Give You Anything But Love?,” over a swaggering beat, a cheating husband struggles to figure out where he actually stands with his paramour: “Don’t fix me with that deadly gaze/It’s a little close to pity,” he chokes out. And in “My Most Beautiful Mistake,” a duet with Nicole Atkins , a screenwriter in a diner tells the waitress about envisioning her in movie scenes; she’s skeptical. “I’ve seen your kind before,” she observes, “in courtroom sketches.”

While the lyrics are convoluted, the music simply charges ahead. Like so many pandemic albums, “The Boy Named If” was pieced together remotely. Costello, on guitar, worked together with the drummer Pete Thomas; then he and the co-producer Sebastian Krys layered on parts by Davey Faragher on bass and Steve Nieve on keyboards.

Yet the Imposters sound gleefully, brutally unified, every bit as bristling as the Attractions on “This Year’s Model” or the Imposters on “When I Was Cruel” in 2002. “Farewell, OK” opens the album with Costello shouting through a distorted rockabilly boogie. “Death of Magic Thinking” meshes a pummeling march with a Bo Diddley beat and multiple jabbing, scrabbling guitars, steamrollering through a skewed chord progression and a tale of adolescent bewilderment.

“The Difference” — based, Costello has revealed, on the bleak love story in Pawel Pawlikowski’s 2018 film “Cold War” — has Costello’s guitars and Nieve’s organ tossing bits of dissonance back and forth in the verses, then veers into a poppy major-key chorus that asks, “Do you by chance know wrong from right?”

Over more than 30 studio albums, Costello has regularly tested himself against new genres and new collaborators: classical, country, R&B, hip-hop, jazz. But some of his strongest albums, like this one, have been his reunions with the Attractions/Imposters. Inevitably, there are echoes of Costello’s past on the new album.

“Magnificent Hurt” harks back to the pounding garage-rock and nagging organ of old Costello songs like “Pump It Up.” But the guitar solos are untamed, and there’s a smart Costello twist in the chorus, using just a pause: “It’s the way you make me feel magnificent/Hurt.” With Costello and the Imposters, familiarity breeds audacity, not routine. Some youthful pleasures weren’t illusions at all.

Elvis Costello & the Imposters “The Boy Named If” (Capitol)

Jon Pareles has been The Times’s chief pop music critic since 1988. A musician, he has played in rock bands, jazz groups and classical ensembles. He majored in music at Yale University. More about Jon Pareles

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Elvis Costello & The Imposters Announce Summer 2022 Tour

By Evan Minsker

Elvis Costello & The Imposters have announced a tour this summer behind their just-released album A Boy Named If . The tour features dates across North America this summer, and at the majority of those shows, Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets will open. Find those dates below.

Read Pitchfork’s 5-10-15-20 interview “ Elvis Costello on the Music of His Life .”

All products featured on Pitchfork are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Elvis Costello & The Imposters:

08-06 Huber Heights, OH - Rose Music Center at The Heights ^ 08-08 Toronto, Ontario - Massey Hall * 08-09 Buffalo, NY - Artpark Amphitheater ^ 08-11 New York, NY - The Rooftop at Pier 17 * 08-12 Bensalem, PA - Xcite Center at Parx Casino 08-13 Ledyard, CT - Foxwoods Resort Casino 08-15 Boston, MA - Leader Bank Pavilion * 08-16 Northampton, MA - The Pines Theater * 08-18 Vienna, VA - Wolf Trap * 08-23 Denver, CO - Levitt Pavilion * 08-25 Salt Lake City, UT - Sandy Amphitheater * 08-28 Thousand Oaks, CA - Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza * 08-30 Anaheim, CA - City National Grove of Anaheim * 09-02 Paso Robles, CA - Vina Robles Amphitheatre * 09-03 Las Vegas, NV - The Theater at Virgin Hotels *

^ with Nicole Atkins  * with Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets

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Elvis Costello & The Imposters Announce 2022 North American Tour

They'll be joined by Nick Lowe and Nicole Atkins

Elvis Costello  &  The Imposters are hitting the road this summer in support of their latest album,  The Boy Named If . The trek will see Nicole Atkins alternating with Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets as the opening act.

After kicking off the tour on August 6th in Huber Heights, Ohio, the band will make stops in cities like Toronto, New York City, and Boston. It’s currently scheduled to close out on September 3rd in Las Vegas, with more dates to be announced in the future.

See the full itinerary below. A ticket pre-sale begins Thursday, February 17th at 10:00 a.m. local time (use code CURTAIN ) via Ticketmaster . A public on-sale follows on Friday, February 18th at 10:00 a.m. local time.

Last month, Elvis Costello & The Imposters stopped by  Late Show with Stephen Colbert for a performance of “Magnificent Hurt,” after which Costello also sat down for a three-part interview with the late night host.

Elvis Costello & The Imposters 2022 Tour Dates: 08/06 – Huber Heights, OH @ Rose Music Center at The Heights ^ 08/08 – Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall * 08/09 – Buffalo, NY @ Artpark Amphitheater ^ 08/11 – New York, NY @ The Rooftop at Pier 17 * 08/12 – Bensalem, PA @ Xcite Center at Parx Casino 08/13 – Ledyard, CT @ Foxwoods Resort Casino 08/15 – Boston, MA @ Leader Bank Pavilion * 08/16 – Northampton, MA @ The Pines Theater * 08/18 – Vienna, VA @ Wolf Trap * 08/23 – Denver, CO @ Levitt Pavilion * 08/25 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Sandy Amphitheater * 08/28 – Thousand Oaks, CA @ Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza * 08/30 – Anaheim, CA @ City National Grove of Anaheim * 09/02 – Paso Robles, CA @ Vina Robles Amphitheatre * 09/03 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Theater at Virgin Hotels *

^ = w/ Nicole Atkins * = w/ Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets

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Live Review: Elvis Costello And The Imposters @ Sydney Opera House Concert Hall

It felt like vintage Costello. It could’ve been the late 70s...

Elvis Costello (Credit: Mark Seliger)

Time can be a painful thing - especially when it’s thrust upon a stage, casting a mirror back out into the audience. The ferocity and force, the raw witticism and spitfire criticism seem to have tempered since the heyday of Punk. But, of course, it has. The world has moved on. 

Elvis has moved on. One left the building almost half a century ago while the other,  Elvis Costello And The Imposters,  filled out the Sydney Opera House’s Concert Hall for a nostalgic romp through an impressive back catalogue. 

Things fall apart with time, so we find new means of coping. Costello’s voice lacks the vivacity that previously allowed him to bounce from verbose verse to verbose verse. So, while the band keeps time, his lyric trails behind in the backbeat past the backbeat. 

This was certainly apparent in  Jack Of All Parades  from Elvis’ 1986 record  King Of America . The lyric trailed behind the instrumentation, bloated and staggering. Punchlines were pushed into the next bar, an accidental enjambment that haunted each song. 

Perhaps that’s always been part of Elvis’ charm: the haphazardness, the chaos of the lyrics, which—due to its loquacity—spills out and breaks down the 4/4 order of the poppier elements that make Elvis’ music unique. On  Accidents Will Happen  from Costello’s 1979 album  Armed Forces,  the verses were filibusters butting up against the relatively sparse chorus, making it difficult to sing along to.

Still, the opening line from Elvis’ popular yet retired track,  Oliver’s Army  - “Don’t start the talking, I could talk all night” - perfectly captures Elvis’ impulse. He filled silences between songs with comments like: “I got this guitar here, so I’m gonna do this song here.”

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Costello dove into a few unreleased songs that he wrote for the 2016 musical  A Face In The Crowd,  based on Budd Schulberg 's story originally published as  Your Arkansas Traveler . The first,  Big Stars Have Tumbled , included a lukewarm call-and-response, featuring the line, “How I made you call my name…” met by a smattering of “Elvisss…” ringing out.

Costello took to the grand piano on the second one to the tune of “Go Elvis, go Elvis!” from a shaky female voice in the crowd. The witty Brit retorted, “I’m singing this one just for you… cause you gotta watch the back of my head.” The title track from that musical,  A Face In The Crowd,  is a self-described “theme song of a hard drinking, pill popping womaniser.”  

Costello provided this preface for the third track from the musical: “If I ever ran for office, I’d need a campaign song and luckily I have one”.  Blood & Hot Sauce  satirises American patriotism by infusing it with a harangue on American charlatanism, a clever melange meditating on the rotten state of the union.

In keeping with the nostalgia, Costello introduced the track,  Mistook Me For A Friend,  from his 2022 album,  The Boy Named If,  in this way: “This is about when I was a young man and I was finding my way around the world. I was in a strange town… it might’ve been Wollongong, or it might’ve been New York… and I was in a club at 2 am, and they were playing that awful New Wave music… and then it was 3 am, and I had keys to a car, but I didn’t drive and keys to a house but it wasn’t mine, and so I wrote this song.”

It felt like vintage Costello. It could’ve been the late 70s if it weren’t for the cracking voice and the awkward harmonies. 

It’s easy to see why the concert went for 150 minutes when the band launched into a sprawling version of  Watching The Detectives . A cosmic slop of Two Tone and New Wave with heavy bass, messy crying guitar licks and decay on the already decayed vocals. Indigo lights burned while Elvis varied the theme, suddenly packing two lines into one, reversing the trend of elongation in a moment of lyrical lucidity.

Next came an erudite meditation on a cover: acoustic guitar in hand, Costello sat on a stool and quipped, “It’s at times like this when you quote the philosophers… Jean-Luc Godard or Jean-Paul Sartre … Brigitte Bardot … Plato … Socrates … Great in the midfield for Brazil… skip over all of them, and you get to Mose Allison .” This was the welcome mat to  Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy  from the album The Sage Of Tippo . 

Then, Costello held up a trophy and said, “I got this in Texas—what he called “The Jimmy Durante Award.” Continuing the comedy, he remarked, “I’d like to thank the academy…it was on account of resemblance.” This led to the opening track on his 1986 album,  Brilliant Mistake .

Good Year For The Roses  led into a homage to The Specials with a melodica-heavy rendition of  Ghost Town . This seemed to drive the set towards its zenith with  Everyday I Write The Book  and a five-song encore, which included  I Don’t Want To Go To Chelsea ,  Pump It Up  and  What’s So Funny About Peace, Love And Understanding? 

As well as this, the enduring jilted ballad:  Alison,  which Costello provided a backstory for: “When I first came to these shores, I followed in the footsteps of many of my ancestors… they said you’ve got 37 minutes of music, and we could get that down to 25 minutes before people start throwing things.

“So, we used to not play this… because it would make it too easy for the girls to like us… but it was actually because I couldn’t play the opening guitar - I didn’t have enough fingers…” What he lacked in fingers and vocal chops, he made up for in unifying an Easter egg-heavy Sunday night crowd.

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