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Elvis Costello certainly has become a personable, humane guy. Roughly a decade ago, the singer-songwriter stormed off the stage of the Berkeley Community Theatre after a nasty half-hour set.
Friday night, Costello, who has undergone a gradual attitude bypass, brought his current band, the six-member Rude 5, to the Greek Theater in Berkeley and performed for more than two hours under a rising full moon.
Fresh from the Top 20 success of his first American hit single, "Veronica," he played a stack of songs from his three most recent albums and gave his earlier work a light dusting that put his career in context. Whether railing at heartless government and industry fatcats or swapping lines to Van Morrison's "Jackie Wilson Said" with the audience during his solo acoustic segment, he charmed the Berkeley crowd.
"How ya doin'?" he asked the delighted, howling full house after bowling them over with "Accidents Will Happen," an aching confession from his third LP, 1979's Armed Forces. "We've been down south — Southern California — and it's nice to be back among civilized people," he said.
Tearing through a crazy-quilt of styles including folk, country & western, lounge jazz, R&B, and minimalist new-wave rock, Costello solidified his status as the most articulate and productive songwriter to be spawned by the punk movement. And he did so with the stunning, close-to-the-bone insights and intellectual wordplay that have always characterized his lyrics.
The majestic up-tempo version of "Accidents Will Happen" that opened the concert served as an ideal introduction to the near-orchestral force of the Rude 5. Besides the galvanizing, versatile guitarist Marc Ribot and percussionist/accordionist Michael Blair from Tom Waits' most recent band, the crew of musicians included L.A. studio veteran Larry Knechtel and Pete Thomas, Costello's drummer with his original band, the Attractions.
In telling irony, the Rude 5 also featured Steven Soles on rhythm guitar, mandolin, trombone and vocals and Jerry Scheff on bass guitar, stand-up bass and tuba. Soles is a longtime sideman for Bob Dylan. And Scheff? He used to play behind that other Elvis.
Comparisons to Dylan in his prime are certainly apt. The political content of "Tramp the Dirt Down," an unflinching attack on Margaret Thatcher's England from the most recent Costello album Spike, and its arrangement, which centers on Costello's acoustic guitar play, echo Dylan's folk-period rabble-rousing. Elvis even slammed Ronald Reagan when he introduced the song.
Costello quoted a line from Dylan's downbeat "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" during "Man Out of Time," a bit of stately, strummed anguish that began a mini-concert of four — count 'em — four encores. If you paid attention, you could hear a bit of the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" or the Monkees' "I'm a Believer." A snatch of Cliff Richard's "Yeh Yeh" and a bit of the blues oldie "Baby, Please Don't Go" were mixed into the live version of the cute and lively Costello-Paul McCartney collaboration, "Pads, Paws and Claws."
A jumpy run-through of Willie Dixon's "Hidden Charms" could have been a nod to Presley's Sun Studios rockabilly sound. Then again, it segued out of a deliberate, grinding, almost heavy metal version of "Uncomplicated," a Costello number from his Blood & Chocolate album.
He did a pretty, acoustic version of "The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes" with the audience singing the counter-melody unbidden, a delicate "Alison" and a handful of roots-oriented numbers from 1986's King of America record.
There was also a contemporary dance-floor arrangement of his cynical take on modern bar scenes, "Clubland," complete with woodblock disco-beat, a "Watching the Detectives" that ditched the reggae rhythms of the original, and "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror," the murky New Orleans-style funeral march with Scheff, Soles and a cornet-playing Ribot subbing for the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.
"Veronica" — the hit with the tender lyrics about an older woman's senility juxtaposed against a frothy melody — was perfunctory, with Costello's raspy vocal betraying over a month of hard touring. A surprise duet with Nick Lowe on Lowe's "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?" was as ragged as such an unrehearsed bonus would be.
Through it all, there was Costello, natty in a dark waistcoat, eyes burning behind his oversize glasses, flailing his guitar around like a whip during the climactic sensurround version of his classic rocker "Pump It Up." Elvis lives, baby.
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