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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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ELVIS
COSTELLO - Carling Apollo
Hammersmith,
London
Thursday, February 10th 2005 - by Nick Morgan |
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| Its
funny how songs can haunt you. It’s Autumn
(as far as I can recall) in 1976, and in a flat
in Lancaster we’re watching the local TV news
before heading out for an intense evening sampling
some of the country’s best hand-made beers
(many alas, no more). Tyro newsreader, and soon
to be enfant terrible of the emerging Northern music
scene, Tony Wilson, introduces an angry young man
with a guitar, Buddy Holly spectacles and an ill-fitting
suit who spits out the wonderful words to a song
that is still called (at least in my mind) ‘My
aim is true’ (yes – I know it’s
really ‘Alison’ – but that’s
part of the haunting thing). And then, not too much
later, the same singer comes up with a lyric which
has remained with me ever since, a helpful maxim
in navigating ones way through the vagaries of west
London social-life - “She looks like Natasha
but her name is Elsie, I don’t want to go
to Chelsea”. |
More
years on than I care to remember, I observe that
the suit is still ill-fitting (though a bit more
on the looser side these days), the specs, though
smaller, are still worn at a quirky angle, and Elvis
Costello, if not still angry, then
has certainly transcended to one of the great grumpy
old men of rock and roll. And he’s on stage
with the Impostors (aka the Attractions, minus original
bass player Bruce Thomas) with keyboard player Steve
Nieve (whose fractured psycho-bubblegum style playing
has always been, or so it seems to me, the perfect
foil for Costello’s spiky guitar and stuttering
lyrics), Theremin and all, in quite sublime form.
Last time I saw Elvis he was on stage with Steve
Earle, Emmylou Harris (who sings on his new album),
Nancy Griffiths and John Prine. |
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| What
was noticeable then was that whilst these four transatlantic
troubadours had learned the benefits of economy
in their songs (average length just under three
minutes), Elvis had forgotten it, preferring instead
to lurch into self-indulgent longueurs almost bordering
on self-parody (on that night he almost murdered
‘Shipbuilding’, arguably one of his
finest songs). But tonight, reflecting the style
of the new album Delivery Man (and the more recent
When I was Cruel) – he’s back to tightly
structured power-pop songs, written with the venom
and accomplishment that have always made him stand
out from the crowd. And apart from a few (largely
failed) attempts at guitar hero he’s as tight
and focussed as the songs – and for the most
part doesn’t have a great deal to say, apart
from through his quite excellent and remarkably
strong singing. |
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If
you haven’t heard the new album, recorded
in Mississippi and produced by Dennis Herring, then
I would commend it to you. Buy if you can the just
released limited edition version which includes
a ‘bonus’ CD, Delta-Verite, The Clarksdale
Sessions, recorded on a mobile in the same abandoned
Clarksdale railway station that the divine Cassandra
Wilson used for Belly of the Sun. Which is, by the
way, next door to the Delta Blues Museum, well worth
a visit if you’re passing through, as is the
diner round the corner which serves huge lunch plates
of meat and collared greens, and where the friendly
locals will share their incredulity with you that
anyone has travelled there from London just because
of “that music thing”. |
| The
Delivery Man
Elvis Costello |
There
are fourteen tracks on the album, and we get them
all, interlaced, as the evening progresses, with
hits from the Costello back catalogue, mostly the
classics of the late 70s and early 80s. ‘The
delivery man’, ‘Country darkness’.
‘Bedlam’, ‘Needle time’
and ‘Clings like ivy’ are pure Costello,
and perhaps surprisingly generously received by
an audience who are clearly there more for nostalgia
than new work. And the splenetic ‘Monkey to
man’ is a reworked tribute to Dave Bartholomew’s
‘Monkey’ (as performed most recently
by Dr John), itself recorded in full on the Verite
disc. As for the oldies, well its almost “you
name them, he played them”. ‘Alison’,
‘Don’t blame it on Cain’, ‘Pump
it up’, ‘Radio radio’. ‘I
don’t want to go to Chelsea’, ‘When
I was cruel’, ‘For the roses’,
‘Shipbuilding’, ‘Watching the
detectives’. In fact I counted more than 30
songs in 2 hours 15 minutes (actually I ran out
of paper and gave up counting) and couldn’t
help thinking that this was one of those occasions
when less might have been better.
But really that’s churlish. Here’s a
man on top of his game. At one and the same time
he’s composing an opera about the life of
Hans Christian Andersen, on the other he’s
pumping out tunes that are as rocking and relevant
as the ones he wrote nearly thirty years ago. Not
bad for a bloke who’s just turned 50! - Nick
Morgan (photos by Kate, X) |
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the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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