Review of concert at 2000-05-13: Washington DC, Island Arts from Ireland concert, Kennedy Center Opera House
Elvis Costello & Steve Nieve
- Bill McDermott [darkglobe@erols.com]

 

my wife leyla and i traveled to washington dc for the opening night concert of the irish festival and were very pleasantly surprised at how good it was.  and ec was unpredictable, affable and stunningly entertaining.  after a half-hour intermission, emmylou harris appeared with mary black on harmonies to sing "you'll never be the sun".  emmylou halted the song a minute into it or so and they started again.   after that, mary black stayed on-stage to sing "last song for ellis island" - a touching song of love lost by emigration.

at that point the stage emptied save for donal lunney (i believe-could be wrong) on an acoustic guitar of sorts, and he introduced elvis.  on he strode, suit and hat with acoustic guitar.  announcing he was there as an "accidental englishman", he said he was going to play "a contemporary song by adam, larry, the edge and bono - U2."  he then made a comment about U2 i didn't catch ("the guys who put the ? back in celtic(?)") and he launched into "please" from 'pop'.  i can't see the irish reference, aside from it being written by U2 but it floored me.  i've been a U2 follower since '80 and had gotten to the point where i was put off by their bloated success.  i passed up free tix to the pop tour because of the largesse.  but the album "pop" amazed me and "please" in particular is a compelling song.  elvis did it devastatingly.   he then announced he'd do a new song from a group of songs he's been writing called "the delivery man" (he played songs from these as you know on the lonely world tour) and called emmylou harris to join him on "heart shaped bruise."  they harmonized, sharing one microphone and it was quite nice.  luckily i was close though, 'cause the sound lessened as they shared the mic.

elvis appeared honored to be there, but i wonder what he would've thought if he looked up at the center box, 1st tier and saw secretary of state madeline albright sitting there.   that sure was a strange sight!

bill mcdermott