Chris Butler
April 13, The Big Easy
It was worth the wait. Elvis Costello fans who made it to the rescheduled concert at The Big Easy Concert House reveled, pogoed, pumped their fists in the air, sang along and screamed while Costello and The Imposters played a tight, turbulent retrospective of Costello's 27 years of music.
He spoke little and played a lot, reminding you how Costello's raw, urgent elemental sound helped shape the spirit of a decade. Costello, who postponed a performance two days earlier because of vocal problems, sounded great as he sang through the 130-minute, non-stop set. He played nearly his entire songbook of punk-, blues-, soul-, country- and reggae-infused hits, proving himself at 50 to be a formidable guitarist and rocker.
Highlights were "Watching the Detectives," played with an edge as sharp as his sterling-silver-chain-mail-and-snakeskin Euro-boots, revitalized arrangements of "Pump It Up," and "When I Was Cruel (Cool)" and a guitar-solo left turn into "I Feel Pretty" from "West Side Story."