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Elvis Costello's recent visit to New Zealand was certainly a quieter event than his previous trip to the Antipodes. On his Australian tour last year Costello provoked a number of near riots when he played a feisty forty-minute set and then refused to return for encores. But, as Bob Dylan can testify, the over-present possibility of the unexpected is the stuff on which rock 'n' roll legends are based. A little mystery goes a long way.
But when Elvis Costello and the Attractions climbed onto the stage before an estimated 45,000 festival-goers at Sweetwaters, such considerations are soon forgotten as they kicked into an aggressive version of "I Stand Accused," an old Merseybeats song. In contrast to MI-Sex, who followed Costello in the festival line-up, the Attractions eschewed all but the essential staging — there's no intricate lighting arrangements, no banks of keyboards, indeed Pete Thomas doesn't even use the drum riser provided. Instead Costello's set stands or falls on the songs and the Attractions performance of them and, while the sound may be less than perfect and the band's playing not always totally synchronised, the show always avoids the predictable or tame.
There are punchy versions of favourites like "Lipstick Vouge" and "This Year's Girl," tasty rearrangements of others such as "Watching the Detectives" and "Less Than Zero" (which here takes on a funky edge) and surprise additions like Presley's "Little Sister," which Costello introduces as "also by a man called Elvis" and a superbly sung version of the Jim Reeves country oldie "Hell Have to Go." Costello also took the opportunity to preview material from his recently completed fourth album Get Happy which will, Costello tells us, be released shortly on F-Beat Records. His confidence disguises the fact that Costello and Warner Brothers Records (the previous distributors of his product) are in the midst of legal wrangles that could delay the album's release for several months at least.
The new songs played at Sweetwaters suggest a slight move away from the pop-inflected sound of the earlier records towards more of a soul music feel — closer in fact to the style of "Moods for Moderns" on Armed Forces. This shift is exemplified by the proposed release of an old Sam and Dave B side "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down," as the first single off Get Happy! Elsewhere in this set newies like "Possession" seem reminiscent of recent Graham Parker output.
After a stirring version of "You Belong to Me" and an assurance to the crowd that they'll certainly be back to New Zealand, Costello and the Attractions desert the stage. They encore with "So Young" a song by Australian band Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons and follow-up with a rough version of "Pump It Up." They leave again and as the roadies start to strip the stage, Costello and the Attractions race back and pound into a furious "Mystery Dance" and they cap the evening with Nick Lowe's "What's So Funny About Peace. Love and Understanding."
It was a performance which showed that Costello can balance the expectations of his audience and his need to progress. The success of such artistic tightrope walking allied to his prodigious talent and output as a songwriter Suggest that Elvis Costello may exit from the eighties as strongly as he just entered.
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