Review of concert at Carre Theatre, Amsterdam on 1999-04-12
Elvis Costello & Steve Nieve
- Thomas Schlegel [thschlegel@cityweb.de]

 

 

Carre Theatre, Amsterdam on 1999-04-12

My trip to Amsterdam to attend the show yesterday was worth every mile I drove (5 hours  one trip). The beautiful old Theatre Carre' was nearly sold out and it was an amazing view from my great 10th row seat up to the crowded balconies.

Ron Sexsmith started the evening with about 30 minutes of fine music. But to be honest I was a bit disappointed about his singing, meaning he did not always hit the right note. However, it was a nice support.

After a break of 30 minutes the bells rung and the crowd entered their seats again. Elvis (dressed in a black suit) and Steve entered the stage and began the amazing and wonderful show. All in all they played a lot of "old stuff" (some in new arrangements) and only a few tracks from PFM (at least I expected more from PFM).

Elvis was in good mood, made a few jokes and (at least that was my feeling) nearly lost his voice after about 30 minutes into the show. Maybe I am wrong, but I thought that if he would not have taken some of his special drinks between the songs (and sometimes even during a song) he might have had a bigger problem. But after three or four songs with quite a "rough" voice, he recovered and became a great singer again.

When the couple left the stage the crowd gave both a warm applause and they returned for the first encore, which was again superb. With each of the four (?) encores the crowd went more and more berserk and gave standing ovations to them. The last song of the evening was performed without the microphones, but with the audience singing together with E.C. at the end of the song. Elvis said they would love to play more but the 2nd show of the evening would start at 0:00 AM, and the Theatre had to be cleared before. This was true, but unfortunately it was not a second EC-show, but a charity for the Kosovo people, which was recorded for broadcast in Dutch TV.

After the show Elvis and Steve left the backstage door in a fine and relaxed mood. Elvis said that he did enjoy the show very much, gave a few autographs, talked a few minutes to the 10-15 fans around, entered the car and drove away to present the show to the rest of Europe.

All in all an amazing evening and so I am looking forward to see the two guys in Frankfurt in the beginning of May.