Review of concert from 2003-10-07: Glasgow, Royal Concert Hall - with Steve Nieve
Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 2003-10-12
- Edd McCracken

 

Costello’s Northern exposure

Live rock: Elvis Costello - Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

By Edd McCracken

Damn Hugh Grant. Not content with turning the British film industry into a bumbling, witless caricature, the fop has turned abrasive, confrontational Elvis Costello into a middle-aged, maudlin jazz singer. It all started with Costello’s She from the Hugh Grant
vehicle Notting Hill, a song as lush and winsome as the film in which it featured. Instead of being an aberration, his new album North is full of tracks such as this – slow, smoky, worthy … dull.

Tonight’s show is a stripped-down affair, with only Costello and his pianist and occasional harmonium player, Steve Nieve, treading the boards. The new songs, “about falling in love in different ways”, form the axis upon which this gig very slowly revolves. Costello’s guitar remains untouched for large sections as he bellows tunes like You Left Me In The Dark and When Did I Stop Dreaming? into the darkness of the concert hall.

Technically, it’s very impressive. Every syllable is nuanced and pronounced (perhaps the influence of Costello’s fiancée, skilled jazz chanteuse Diana Krall), but an onslaught of cold minor chords scythes down any emotional connection. New songs Fallen and Still are exceptions to the rule, however. They are great examples of laid-back adult pop, about looking back uncertainly from middle age and falling in love again respectively.

When he does finally pick up the guitar there are sighs of relief as the gig shifts up a gear . The stripped-back style benefits his impressive back catalogue and by reinventing his songs through acoustic guitar and classical piano it exposes the melody and Costello’s voice like a seam of gold. Accidents Will Happen and a barn-storming Man Out Of Time are particularly enhanced, although Shipbuilding, a song suited to this minimalism, curiously falls flat. But Nieve’s frequent beautiful classical piano codas, which he somehow weaves into the New Wave hits, add something new to familiar songs.

The crowd are responsive. Costello commands an adoration and following matched only by papal leaders, and this audience are similarly reluctant to let him go. When he does leave, inevitably to a standing ovation, it’s after leading the crowd in a music hall singalong. It does however make you miss the caustic, dissonant Elvis even more. He looks happy.

But maybe he’s just growing old gracefully, not content just to play the angry man anymore. Still, damn Hugh Grant anyway.