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This year's Elvis Costello is a completely new model.
Alone on stage the beloved entertainer shouted, screamed, spat and at times even sang his way through a collection of songs that represent the best in the last decade of pop music.
The one song he did not sing was "I'm Not Angry."
The scene was set at the St Davids Hall on Thursday night by Nick Lowe.
Playing like the superb busker he is, Lowe, strumming alone on a semi acoustic guitar, gave the impression that he had a five-piece backing band.
The man who Johnny Cash says taught him how to put rhythm into some of his songs disparagingly referred to himself as Elvis's "warm up act."
He was much more than that, and the capacity Cardiff audience knew it.
Costello took the stage, his face clenched, and gave a complete reworking of an encyclopaedia of songs.
Accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, this was Costello cut down to the bone.
The sparse essential versions would not be to everyone's taste. But a confident and lean Costello was preaching to the converted.
He was good in spite of that.
Proving himself to be a remarkably adept guitarist his set encompassed such oldies as "Watching the Detectives" and "Alison" and songs from his new LP Spike.
The versions displayed new venom and even at times despair.
He also achieved real melody — in particular with a running together of "New Amsterdam" with the Beatles' "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" and on to "American Without Tears."
In a Costello-meets-Loudon Wainwright version of "God's Comic" he gave his own vision of hell in which Esther Rantzen featured prominently.
By the time he sang Van Morrison's "Jackie Wilson Said" his roots were beginning to show.
The only fully electric song he played was a manic acid house version of "Pump It Up."
The audience loved it, and he was called back for encore after encore.
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