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So much attention is usually paid to the high-decibel sound and emotional fury of rock concerts that it is easy to overlook the reason behind this music's quarter-century of cultural dominance. That is, there are rock composers whose insights and artistry can match the best in the history of popular music.
That's why the concert, featuring respective sets by T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello, was so rewarding Sunday night. All focus was on the song and the singer. For once, the traditional pursuit of catharsis could be put on hold. You could just sit back and listen.
The pairing of the two artists was noteworthy, since each brings to the rock song what can be called a moral vision. T Bone Burnett is a long lanky Texan with the kind of folk and blues roots of a twangy Bob Dylan. (Burnett played guitar in Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue).
Though Burnett has spoken freely of his Christianity, his songs deal most prominently with secular aspects of faith and belief. Burnett is often concerned about the intersection at which egoism and consumerism conspire to gridlock humanism. Madison Avenue hucksters, Wall Street hippies and vapid Hollywood movie queens are often the targets of anger borne out of disappointment.
In "The Murder Weapon," Burnett warned of the betrayals of the tongue: "It can be as cutting and brutal as the teeth of a shark / or as subtle and cunning as a kiss in the dark." A new song, apparently called "My Life and the Women Who Lived It" shows him moving in directions both more personal and more forgiving: "It's a stage I'm going through / learning to give credit where credit is due," he sang. Burnett's willingness to grow up in public with such grace and sensitivity will continue to make him one of rock's most valuable artists.
The same can be said of Elvis Costello, who opened his set with "Accidents Will Happen." Costello is perhaps rock's most graceful wordsmith, and his songs, like Burnett's, have evolved from wrathful to generous, from obsession with betrayal to acceptance of people's differences.
Costello's set included "Green Shirt," a rocker that had many in the audience adding the percussion parts with their palms that they remembered from the record. "Girls Talk," played on a single guitar, had some of the traditional country-pop feel of a great Everly Brothers song — no wonder Everly aficionado Dave Edmunds seemed to enjoy recording it so much.
For pure craftsmanship, Costello is probably unparalleled among rock composers. But the nakedness of a solo performance revealed some problems. Songs such as "Everyday I Write the Book" were as beautifully folded as a work of origami. But they sometimes seemed to fold in rather than fold out. To put it another way, Costello ties the elements of his songs together with great concentration, but once in awhile hie songs seemed to end up in knots rather than bows.
Highlights of the set included his saloon song "Almost Blue," his pacifist anthems "Shipbuilding" and the new "Peace in Our Time," and tunes by other artists, including Bob Dylan's "I Threw It All Away." Costello's performance was often touching and, in its solitary vulnerability, courageous.
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