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The small, partly devoted, mostly curious crowd that attended the Elvis Costello-Wives concert at the Centre of the Arts Tuesday went home numbed and "battered" after listening to nearly two hours of undifferentiated loud noise.
Whether or not Costello, a rising New Wave rocker from England, performed well seems to be beside the point: Very few of the 960 persons present could hear anything else but over-amplified and distorted sound.
The most flagrant offenders in this regard were members of the Wives, the self-styled Anglo-Canadian punk rock band that backed up Costello's group.
Not content with being merely offensive to women's groups, as witnessed by riots prior to recent concerts in Montreal, the Toronto-based group proceeded to make itself offensive to human beings, in general.
Their own peculiar brand of rock was performed at such intolerable decibel levels that a sizeable portion of the audience jammed the lobbies and bar queues before the act was completed.
Dressed like perverted choirboys, the formerly Battered Wives thundered and howled at an intimidated audience for the entire 40-minute set.
The resembled nothing so much as the parody of a fascist rock band that appeared in Paul Williams' movie Phantom of the Paradise, which lampooned the rock music industry. Instead of being armed with scythe-like guitars, however, the group wounded the ears and sensibilities of the crowd with sheer volume alone.
The pained and anguished screams from the loathesome foursome's guitars must have decreased the audience's collective aural life by at least 10 years.
Highlights of the warm-up act were the group's original hit, "Uganda Stomp (Bomp Idi Bomp)," and a rather mean-minded rendition of another New Wave number, Ian Dury's "Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll."
One can only join with the Women Against Violence Against Women group in condemning the Wives not for their alleged sexism, but for their perpetration of bad art.
If the Wives' nasty performance raised expectations for the next act, I'm sure many were even more disappointed with Costello and the three Attractions, bassist Pete Thomas, drummer Bruce Thomas and keyboard man Steve Naive.
Costello began the performance by rattling off tunes from his first record, My Aim Is True, a collection of solid rock and incisive lyrics which recently turned gold.
Unfortunately, each sound produced by the band was amplified to the nth degree, resulting in a homogenous wall of sound.
None of the subtleties of lyric or melody, which set Costello apart from the bulk of the new rockers, was distinguishable. Hence, the performance, except in visual terms, was largely unjudgeable.
Visually, the group relies on Costello's deadpan visage and the interactions between the players to provide the interest. All are dressed in the uniform of the New Wave: thin-legged denim pants with cuff, running or scuffed shoes, T-shirt and dark jacket. Costello was dressed in what appeared to he a green suit, circa 1959, with tight cuffs and wrinkled legs, which pressed together in pigeon-toed stance on several occasions.
The first respite from the loudness was his rendition of Burt Bacharach-Hal David song, "Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself," which appears on a recently released live album, Live Stiffs.
From that point on, Costello seemed to have some interplay and control over the audience. "This Year's Girl," a title cut from his last studio effort, was well done, with organist Naive pumping out the introductory notes on his shrill instrument.
Costello also spoke for the first time to the crowd, asking if there were any girls in the house including the "good girls and the bad girls."
Following "This Year's Girl," the band broke into "Lipstick Vogue," a cut-up of the world of fashion, which sports the happy lyrics: "Sometimes I think that love is just a tumor, you've got to cut it out." A drum solo by Thomas provided the song's midsection and a long drawn out grinding noise finished the piece.
The songs themselves are worth playing: they deal with a number of subjects with wry insight, droll amusement and barely concealed outrage. "Radio, Radio," for example, depicts radio as a propaganda tool; "You Belong To Me" explores adolescent girls' sexual attitudes; "I'm Not Angry" is a spurned lover's denial of jealousy, and "Alison," recounts a conversation between former lovers and hints at homicide.
And the crowd, or at least part of it was not altogether displeased with the performance; several unfurled a banner proclaiming "Elvis Is King" to a resounding yawn.
But, those that cheered did so despite, not because of, the group's performance which was uniformly and unlistenably loud throughout.
Centre executive director George Haynes remarked with some insight, that those in attendance would be "much happier to listen to a concert that is not over-amplified."
Haynes said his experience with younger crowds in Regina was wholly satisfactory, but that they were getting poor value for their money because of loudness.
"We like to have these groups here because they appeal to the younger he said, adding the sound problem was discouraging many from attending.
Another centre official wondered aloud why rock groups don't realize the Centre of the Arts is "acoustically perfect," and adjust the volume accordingly.
I for one hope his plea will not fall on deaf ears. Regina cannot afford to have less than 1,000 persons attending concerts featuring talent of the calibre of Elvis Costello. But the situation will worsen until sound levels are lowered.
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