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The name is Elvis but there is no resemblance to the man they once called the Pelvis.
Elvis Costello is admittedly tall and dark but there is as much Latin sensuality in him as a pipe cleaner.
He wears dark, old-fashioned suits, black plastic framed glasses and sports his hair in a brushback without quiff.
His music is as intense as his appearance and as fans at De Montfort Hall, Leicester, appreciated last night, he plays as abrasively as he speaks.
Not so long ago Costello was a computer technician. Now with his latest band, the Attractions, he's pioneering the thinking fan's brand of new wave.
The sound is familiar. The keyboards of Steve Naive could have been plucked straight from a decade ago, but there the similarity fades out.
Costello's music is pop sandpapered down. His songs are the diary of the seventies' angry young man. There's no Dylan imagery but there's plenty of the American's awareness.
Costello, who bounced into the limelight with a rowdy fanfare last year and a recent hit with "Watching the Detectives," has a new album out to coincide with the tour.
Fittingly for a man who looks set to dominate 1978 it's called This Year's Model and in its first week of release has hit the No. 4 spot in the album charts.
This new Elvis has arrived, snarling.
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