Re: Elvis Costello & the Imposters in Seattle

Reno, all I can say is, I'm awfully sorry your experience with E.C. on this tour left so much to be desired. (You aren't the only one; a good friend of mine caught this tour in Denver, and said the singer simply had no energy for the show.) But he gave an excellent performance at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle last night.

Sound quality was mostly very clear and full; the two backup singers, Kitten Kuroi and Brianna Lee (both of whom appear on Look Now) added a lot to the overall arrangements. (One of my long-time complaints with E.C. onstage is that he's almost always insisted on handling all the vocals himself, eschewing harmony vocals.) Steve Nieve, Pete Thomas and Davey Farragher were solid, as always. Elvis' voice was occasionally rough-sounding, but what else is new. Most of the time, he sounded fine, and a few times, even better than fine. His stage patter was kind of odd, though; he seemed to be affecting some down-home, middle-American mannerisms to his speech. ("Let me tell you about this here song ...")

The live setting did a lot for the new songs, which IMO, tend to be a bit overbaked on Look Now. Probably the only issue with the mix, IMO, was that the guitar seemed occasionally muted, on songs that just called for it to have that added punch ("I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea," "What's So Funny"). He revamped quite a few of his songs, to bring out certain aspects of them -- "Tears Before Bedtime" was performed as a slow, mournful torch song. He also folded snippets of a few classic tunes into his own work, to usually fine effect. He performed "Alison" with just his own guitar and the two singers ... and the audience fell silent to listen, just as they did a few years ago when we saw Nick Lowe perform the song.

Elvis didn't present any of his own songs in abbreviated form, though. These all were full renditions. The whole show lasted about 2 hours, 45 minutes, with no opening act.

SETLIST:
This Year's Girl
Honey, Are You Straight or Are You Blind?
Clubland
Green Shirt
The Look of Love/Photographs Can Lie
Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter
Heartbreak Hotel/Tears Before Bedtime
The Beat
Sugar Won't Work
Watching the Detectives
Deep Dark Truthful Mirror
High Fidelity
The Judgment
Unwanted Number
Alison/The Wind Cries Mary
Every Day I Write the Book

ENCORE:
Accidents Will Happen
Don't Look Now
I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea
Girls Talk
Why Won't Heaven Help Me?
Mystery Dance
Mr & Mrs Hush
Pump It Up
A Face in the Crowd
What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding

Glad to hear it was a great show. I'll just assume that having to address all the technical glitches that seem to have been plaguing this tour finally taught his sound engineer how to do the job.

And the final glitch seems to be my post about it disappearing while the site was down.



Post Edited (12-04-18 13:12)

> I'll just assume that having to address all the technical glitches that seem to have been
> plaguing this tour finally taught his sound engineer how to do the job.

Pity it took the guy this long, since E.C. has just one more date left on this leg of the tour.

We saw the show last Thu. Way too long (3 hours), with not much flow. Too many slow songs - like half the show?! - that disrupted any sense of flow. Some great new arrangements: as Delvin points out, the Costello-ettes were an added bonus. “Alison,” for example, was lifted to a gospel-like level. But as Mrs Fab pointed out, it was like 2 shows - a exciting, energetic rock show, and a stripped-down, laid-back cabaret performance, and one kept interrupting the other.

Cabaret Costello spun long stories before songs, before getting loungey, e.g. “Accidents Will Happen” featured only piano. Which might have been fine if it was only that, at a jazz club, and not at a rock show. But the rock did indeed rock, with killer versions of classics like “Pump It Up.” Thank Godzilla, no cabaret version of that one!

No technical glitches at least, tho apparently his show the pevious night in Orange County didn’t go so well.

I hazily recall seeing EC in the mid- late 80's (say 85-87?) when he did a solo acoustic show and he had a wheel he spun with the names of his songs. If the wheel landed on that song, he played it. Like a game show. Am I crazy, or was this really a thing? Can anyone verify?

Yep, he's incorporated the Spinning Songbook into at least two tours. He introduced it in '86 (the year of one of his best one-two punches, King of America and Blood & Chocolate), and again in 2012. I caught the latter tour -- one of my first Seattle concerts. He had a woman on stage, dressed as a Vegas showgirl, walking out into the audience and selecting people to come up on stage and spin the wheel. After a song was selected that way, the lucky participant would sit in the "lounge" (a bar with stools, at stage right) while E.C. & the Imposters played the song. It was superb.

No, Delvin. It was beyond superb! Truly a master class in sheer entertainment, as our loquacious host for this musical gameshow was he of the quicksilver wit, Mr. Costello. A pricey ticket [$160+ for my wife and I] and worth several times more.



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> It was beyond superb! Truly a master class in sheer entertainment, as our loquacious
> host for this musical gameshow was he of the quicksilver wit, Mr. Costello.

Yeah, I'll agree with that! "Quicksilver wit" describes well the performance he gave in Seattle on that tour. As I recall, he appeared to have dropped a few pounds -- he seemed to be back to his skinny Seventies self. It definitely was worth whatever I paid. (I've seen E.C. four times now, and although he's never let me down, that show definitely is the standout.)

The last time he taped Austin City Limits I said to someone, "If this music thing doesn't work out, he's got a future as a stand-up comedian." No one does better between-song banter. He also gave us, unsurprisingly, a very smart and thoughtful interview that year.

Well don't forget he did have his own talk show.

I didn't catch the tour but the new album was one of many this year that I didn't "get" until four or more tries. His best overall of the last several (more consistent than Wise Up Ghost).