Most artists' material would not bear even cursory scrutiny in the unforgiving context of one man and his guitar. But Elvis Costello's tragic-comic repertoire shone for a full two hours.
It would not be over-dramatic to say that, from the biting sarcasm of his early between-songs chat to the numbing beauty of his Falklands war song, "Shipbuilding," Costello's knotty vocal cords took this audience from laughter to tears. This was the embodiment of the image on the cover of his album, Spike: the jester face of "The Beloved Entertainer," half black and half white.
The simplicity of the solo performance, if anything, improved on some of Costello's classics like "Watching The Detectives," "New Amsterdam," "Alison," "Accidents Will Happen" and "Oliver's Army." The latest album yielded yet more potent material in "Any King's Shilling," "Let Him Dangle," "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror" and "God's Comic."
Costello remains outrageously quotable. On Prince Charles: "If he got his hand out of our pockets and into his own, then we would not need the Prince's Trust". On Margaret Thatcher in his vitriolic song, "Tramp The Dirt Down"; "When they finally put you in the ground, I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down."
On God, being interviewed by Esther Rantzen in Heaven: "He was reclining on this turquoise water bed full of tropical fish — two of every kind" and "God is one of the few people to have a Sky TV aerial ... He likes to know what the opposition is up to."
Costello's take-off of Manchester's "rock moaners" (Mr Morrissey, I Presume): "Oh, it's a grey day outside — I think I'll kill myself." The jester still has a quiver full of barbed commentaries, and his aim was never so true.
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