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Elvis Costello may have been the headliner on Saturday at this festival of jazz, funk and beyond, but the real star — one notoriously hard to pin down contractually — came unbilled. It was of course the Mediterranean weather, which put the crowd in a good mood from the off.
An audience who clearly wanted to party even forgave Costello when he returned for his encore having decided that what the balmy night needed was a sustained dose of his crooning. Near-unaccompanied, his nasal baritone launched into tremulous ballad treatments of "Accidents Will Happen" and "I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down," plus "Alison" and "She," which even he admitted some people "fucking hate." Happily, the full band returned for rockingly authentic versions of "Oliver's Army" and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding," sending fans contentedly back to their tents or the M23.
At 63, the singer who rose to fame with the torn T-shirt brigade has understandably mellowed. He chats away to the audience, telling them about falling for a femme fatale — his third wife, Diana Krall, one hopes — before singing the lovely "You Shouldn't Look at Me That Way." His speaking accent, perhaps because of marriage, has wandered oddly into the mid-Atlantic. However, it's still "Watching the Detectives," "Radio, Radio" and what Costello calls "the fast, angry songs" played by a great Steve Nieve-led band that highlight his singular talent, not his attempts to be Charles Aznavour.
At Love Supreme the best music is often on the tented stages. The young Londoners Nubya Garcia and Ezra Collective again showed why they are hotly tipped. You felt sorry for Chris Dave and the Drumhedz, whose psychedelic collage of hip-hop, funk and fusion fought against a horrible sound mix and would have made more sense at 3.15am rather than 3.15pm. Hailey Tuck, the gamine alt-jazz singer from Austin, Texas, sang a beguiling mix of originals and covers.
Yet the performance of the day came from a veteran, the saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. At 77 and clearly anxious to save his energy, he relied heavily on his superb backing band. But as Olé and The Creator Has a Master Plan built an unstoppable momentum, this was jazz with mesmeric clout.
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