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Elvis Costello, the man who put the worry back into being close, is rock's most prolific and interesting songwriter but an elusive performer. At the first of three sold-out shows at the Palladium in Manhattan Saturday night (the series concludes tonight), he and his band The Attractions played a set that was as forceful and melodic as a well stocked jukebox. The only problem was that a jukebox might be possessed of more personality.
If Costello displayed nothing more than a benign dissidence, I suppose we should be grateful. In previous shows, he has been as sullen and hostile as the characters in his most petulant songs, like that guide to the mating game, "Two Little Hitlers," for example, or that ode to brotherly love, "Blame It on Cain," or that exercise in emotional generosity, "I'm Not Angry."
That's true. Elvis Costello isn't angry: he's furious, and that's what's so attractive about him. His enormous creative output is almost certainly due to a consistent seepage of repressed rage taking the shape of two-and-a-half minute long pop hymns. The words, the music, the playing and even the persona almost always offer incisive and stimulating frontline dispatches from the battle of the sexes. The issue is whether that's enough for the stage.
Betrayal and futility are great themes for private listening. Costello's records lay bare the civilized savagery of social games. That each of us is our own worst enemy is really Costello's point, and his songs penetrate so deeply, yet so artfully, that beauty and pain become enmeshed.
But at the Palladium Saturday night, Costello looked like a rather large grasshopper ready for work on Madison Avenue. He wore a gray, well-tailored suit and vest and thick spectacles with reddish-tinted lenses: for once, he was looking at the world through rose-colored glasses.
Costello had the courage to begin with a new ballad, "Shot With His Own Gun," its pulpy passion embellished by his sweet, lathery voice. Following that with "Accidents Will Happen," a song that conveys the dashed hope of a suicide note, could upset the evening off in a depressed direction. But played at double speed, what was formerly a provocative ballad became a gloating, gleeful shout. The admission that "I know what I've done," once a confession, became a statement of emancipation.
From then on, Costello and The Attractions roared through a set of songs of seduction and bitterness. But, though those songs deal with the most personal recesses of the personality, there was something impersonal about the delivery.
This wasn't always annoying, but it was frustrating. Costello showed, at various points, the ability and desire to jump into the fire, to put across songs such as "From a Whisper to a Scream," and "Radio, Radio," with blazing, committed fury.
Costello, however, seemed detached in putting across too many good songs. It was as if he was saying that if he really sang them the way he felt when he wrote them, he'd be too upset to get up on stage.
His protective distance didn't prevent enjoyment of the impressive jungle music of "Lovers Walk;" of perilously true ballads like "Clowntime Is Over;" of ambiguous made-for-graffiti song slogans like "Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes." Nor did it spoil his musical jokes, which included beginning "Secondary Modern" with the piano figure from "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," or adding a few bars from Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster (Jammin') to the reluctantly delivered encore, "Watching The Detectives."
But Costello's remoteness put one into the curious position of feeling tremendous affection for someone who seems untouched by it. His feelings seemed so in control that it made you wonder, does he ever have a good time? Does Elvis really suffer for our sins?
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