Translated: Sverre Ronny Saetrum  


“DAGBLADET”, MONDAY APRIL 6TH:


“SING-A-LONG WITH ELVIS !!”



Elvis Costello has such a massive production, and collaborates with so many
top-notch musicians from a variety of musical-styles, that it’s actually
easy to forget just how great a singer and performer he really is. But he
reminded us all of this at his concert at “Vossajazz” last night, with and
without his guitar, and accompanied wonderfully on piano by his his old pal
Steve Nieve from the recently disbanded Attractions.  With some funny lines
in between the songs, and some hilarious mimics to emphasise the lyrics,
but most of all, singing his own and others songs with all the intensity
and hunger of a London Underground busker. He managed to drive the packed
house into a frenzy and received a standing ovation, a reception he
answered by giving us ten encores before he took his jacket and said
goodnight for the very last time.  “The Rolling Stones travels around with
inflatable women, Pink Floyd´s got, most fittingly, an inflatable pig and
U2´s got their McDonald arch and a big television screen. I’ve got this”,
Costello said,  and showed us a small torchlight. He then asked for all the
lights to be dimmed, lit the torchlight and sang “Alison” in the almost
pitch-dark. That way he tied his debut in 1976 (“May aim is true”) to the
recently recorded “God give me strength”, from the ongoing collaboration
with Burt Bacharach. He got the audience to sing-a-long to “Jackie Wilson
said”, he did “Veronica”, “Accidents will happen”, “Watching the detective”
and a dozen or so from his own back-catalogue of pop-songs, and if you ever
wonder how bits of Roy Harper, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison
and David Bowie ( at the time of “Hunky dory”) sounds like rolled into one
person, the answer is Elvis Costello. 
Elvis and Steve Nieve did a marvellous version of  “My funny Valentine”,
but by then they had long ago defended their place in a festival-program
that’s got quality as a much more important criteria than just jazz-purity
!!!

(Reviewed by Terje Mosnes, “Dagbladet”