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With all due respect to the Cleveland Orchestra's upcoming performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 5, there will be no more glorious music heard during the South Florida cultural season than the 10 minutes of Elvis Costello pairing a sublime "Alison" with a raucous and heartfelt version of "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" Thursday night at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.
Poignant, emotional and energizing, it was a crowning moment near the end of an efficient 90-minute set in front of a packed house in the venue's 5,500-seat Au-Rene Theater. Which was just as well, as the preceding time allowed the sound mix (muddy at the outset) and the crowd (somnambulant until halftime) to find their balance.
Elvis Costello & the Imposters' Just Trust Tour takes its name not (exactly) from his under-appreciated 1981 album Trust, but rather the idea that fans who were curious about whether he would deliver their favorite songs would just have to … trust.
While this meant that many in the audience likely left without hearing at least one of their favorite numbers (ahem, "Shipbuilding"?), the show's two-dozen songs offered an invigorating stream of old-school favorites and rarities from an admired 65-year-old performer who, if the applause was any indication, was equal to the expectations set by an audience of longtime fans.
Backed by the revered Imposters — veterans Steve Nieve on keyboards and Pete Thomas on drums, along with bassist Davey Faragher — Costello performed a wonderfully theatrical reading of "Watching the Detectives" (with Costello, bathed in red light, venturing into a psych guitar solo as pulp-fiction book covers and movie posters slid by in the background), twirled through "Accidents Will Happen" and summoned the old vocal venom on a spirited version of "Pump It Up" that kept the crowd on its feet.
A salsa-inflected "Clubland" (from Trust) felt right at home; "Blood & Hot Sauce," from the stage play A Face in the Crowd, was elevated to new heights in an exquisite gospel reading; and his Burt Bacharach collaboration "Photographs Can Lie," from his 2018 album Look Now, was a showcase for Steve Nieve's piano and Costello's gritty vocals, trading his sneering bravado for romantic vulnerability. As a singer, he's still got it.
An hour into the set, the band walked off with a stage-y "thank you and good night," returning moments later with Costello, having traded a straw Panama hat for a red fedora, accelerating into his 1980 cover of Sam & Dave's "I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down." A tour de force of R&B nostalgia, the song managed to raise the audience from their seats, where most would stay through rocking renditions of "High Fidelity," "From a Whisper to a Scream," "Mystery Dance" and, in a tip of the cap to Nick Lowe, "Heart of the City."
Flanked by backup vocalists Kitten Kuroi and Briana Lee, both excellent, Costello eased his way into "Alison" with a patient caress of the guitar and Thomas' spare timekeeping on the snare, imbuing the ballad with an unadorned honesty and fragility. An interweaving of the Supremes-Temptations' classic "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," drove the point home.
While the closing notes of "Alison" hung in the air, Costello ripped into "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding," the rollicking cri de coeur written by Nick Lowe and released on Costello's Armed Forces album 40 years ago. If different from "Alison" in tone and volume, the song on this night seemed to come from a similar, equally passionate place.
Again bracketed by the soulful Kitten Kuroi and Briana Lee, as Costello sang about "searching for light in the darkness of insanity," dozens of fans rushed down the aisle to join him at the edge of the stage, not something you see at the Broward Center very often. In unison they sang of their own search for the strong, the trusted and harmony, sweet harmony.
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