Review of concert at Supper Club, NY on 1996-05-22
NY Post on 1996-05-27

ELVIS & HIS MAIN ATTRACTION DISH IT OUT AT SUPPER CLUB
Rock Review by Dan Aquilante

Elvis Costello, the angry young man of his generation, is now a revered
songwriter's songwriter who possesses a poet's talent to say so much with
so few words.

Wednesday at the Supper Club, Midtown's swank concert hall (which could
double as an Egyptian tomb), Costello played a two-and-a-half hour
concert that showcased his stylish, energetic soul with a balanced
program of his best-known and almost unheard songs.

The show was an intimate acoustic evening with E.C. strumming and singing
the melody and lone Attraction Steve Nieve pounding the percussions and
easing grace notes out of a Steinway baby grand.

Most of the evening's many tunes were played slowly, deliberately placing
all of the emphasis on lyrics, as if Costello was saying, "Listen, the
words have meaning." In spite of that, and a plea over the house PA that
requested the crowd to be mindful of chitchat, there was plenty on
annoying chatter during the concert.

Costello--dressed comfortably in black slacks, a lifeguard-orange shirt
and an open leather vest--was relaxed as he sang, told R'n'R war-horse
stories, recounted dreams (in which God asked him to explain modern rock)
and even did impressions of the other Elvis. He seemed to be having as
good a time at his concert as the fans.

Although the songs were tapped from almost every part of his career,
Costello returned again and again to mine from his disc "All This Useless
Beauty." The title track was wonderful, especially hearing him sing the
chorus in Italian, but E.C. was incredible during a song he wrote with
Aimee Mann, "The Other End of the Telescope."

That song's poignant lyrics--such as "Words that turn out to be big as
smoke, a smoke that disappears into the air, there's always something
smoldering somewhere"--in many ways seem to describe the striking yet
elusive nature of Costello's poetry.

Of the oldies, the crowd, as always, loved "Alison" (his first single,
from 1977) with the encore version of "Watching the Detectives" being the
showstopper of the evening.

Costello punctuated "Little Atoms" with a story about an interview he
termed "an interrogation" with a young German man who accused E.C. of
destroying pop music and stealing from the German national anthem for the
chorus of "Atoms." The German was right (there are four swiped notes
from the anthem) and even righter when he said Costello has done his best
to destroy pop--the mush-minded kind that is. What he didn't say was
that E.C. has also done his best to replace it with intelligent songs
that aspire to speak eye to eye with the listener, rather than talking
down to us.

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Costello and the full Attraction complement will play the Beacon Theater
this summer. Dates have yet to be set, but expect the tour to return
there in late July. This is a show not to be missed.