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Elvis Costello can still rage like that skinny bespectacled Englishman who burst onto the New Wave/punk scene 40-some years ago, and his guitar playing has never sounded sharper. Costello played a two-hour set Friday night at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre like he has something to prove.
It should come as no surprise that Elvis Costello's songs have aged well. What was a surprise at Friday night's show at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre was how well Costello himself has aged.
He can still rage like that skinny bespectacled Englishman who burst onto the New Wave/punk scene 40-some years ago, and his guitar playing has never sounded sharper. Costello played a two-hour set like he has something to prove — which, of course, he doesn't.
Playing on a cool and drizzly night (well, cool by Florida standards — it was 66 degrees at showtime but much of the crowd was bundled up) Costello and the Imposters roared through 25 songs.
Trying to guess what they might play next was an exercise in futility — on the previous 10 dates on this JusTrust Tour, they had played 67 different songs, and Friday night they did a half-dozen or so that hadn't shown up yet on the tour.
It didn't hurt that the Imposters include Steve Nieve and Pete Thomas from the Attractions, the band that was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Costello. Add in bass player Davey Faragher, who has been in Costello's band since 2002, and you've got an outfit that can follow anywhere Costello cares to take them.
Nieve was particularly good Friday night, jumping from grand piano to electric piano to organ to synthesizer, often on the same song. The setlist leaned heavily on the first handful of albums Costello released. The band was eight songs into the show before they played a song released after 1981.
So it was kind of unexpected when "Blood & Hot Sauce," a song that hasn't even been released yet, was a highlight of the evening. The song, part of a musical, A Face in the Crowd, that's due next year, features some stinging lyrics about the American political climate and put backup singers Kitten Kuroi and Briana Lee into a well-deserved spotlight. Costello introduced it as "a campaign song for anybody who needs it."
As the show wound down — the band never left the stage, so technically there were no encores — they turned up the heat for high-energy versions of "Pump It Up," "Everyday I Write the Book, "Mystery Dance," the old Larry Williams/Beatles tune "Slow Down" and a version of "Alison" that briefly morphed into the Motown classic "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" before wrapping up with one that's never seemed more timely — "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding." The songs, like Costello himself, haven't lost a step.
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