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"Well. I hope you all have an enormous time. Really."
For the full house in Albany's historic Palace Theater last April 7, Elvis Costello's challenge was not a difficult one to meet. A longtime critic's pet and college radio favorite, the Londoner has dubbed himself Spike the Beloved Entertainer for his fifteen-date tour of college towns.
Borrowing this year's title from British comedian Spike Jones, Costello decided to play small halls both to test out new material from 1989's excellent, eclectic Spike before hitting the road with a full band (whose members are yet to be named), and to give a chance for "real people" to see his performances in intimate settings. His first Albany appearance in ten years, the show — featuring Costello and his acoustic guitar — proved to fans and interested listeners alike that the name Spike the Beloved Entertainer was by no means an overstatement of Costello's abilities.
The night's entertainment began with a tasteful set of solo numbers by Costello's friend and one-time producer, Nick Lowe. Throughout the forty-five minute set, which featured material from an upcoming solo album, and older material from last year's Pinker Than Pink, from the Cowboy Outfit record Rose of England, and Rockpile classics written during his 70's partnership with Dave Edmunds, Lowe's mellow tenor and spirited strumming were confident, if not excellent.
The crowd was attentive to and appreciative of Lowe's performance, and the singles "Cruel To Be Kind," "Half A Man," and "When I Write the Book" drew a surprisingly good crowd response. For the final number of Lowe's set, Costello came on stage for an impromptu reunion of the Coward Brothers, a stage name Costello (Howard Coward) and Lowe (Henry Coward) used for a short stint of gigs and the release of a single, "The People's Limousine," in 1987. The longtime friends combined for a richly textured rendition of Lowe's most famous song, "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding," a song which was among Costello's best-known records of the seventies. The excellent duet was just a taste of things to come from the diminutive, awkward Costello, and the audience was more than ready for Spike to begin the second half, and inevitably the bigger half, of the evening's entertainment.
Costello opened on an ironic but typical note — "Oh I just don't know where to begin" ("Accidents Will Happen," from 1979's Armed Forces), but once he had begun, his purpose for the evening was evident: to entertain an expectant audience with fresh interpretations of new and old songs, with affable wit, and with a characteristic — and somewhat twisted — dramatic element: on this tour, the Broken Heart of Unknown Deadly Sins...
Costello's set, which lasted just over two hours, struck a good balance between new and older numbers, from his 1977 debut My Aim Is True through this year's Spike. Of the fifteen songs recorded for Spike, he performed only six over his three sets, including "Let Him Dangle," a meditation on capital punishment, "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror," and two songs written "with that left-handed guy" (Paul McCartney) — the single "Veronica" and the amusing "Pads, Paws, and Claws" (during which the audience was invited to make cat-like screeches). Costello displayed biting wit in "God's Comic," a parody of American television. He explained, "this song is about an interview between God and Geraldo Rivera. It's like when Geraldo interviewed Manson... Grr... What if God looks just like Morton Downey, Jr.?" The entire song was punctuated by Costello's one-liners on the media. "I really like the Solid Gold dancers." His Irish roots and London upbringing made his seemingly absurd comments quite funny.
But more immediate than the amusing "God's Comic" and musically the finest song of the night was "Baby Plays Around," a jazz-inflected, plaintive number Costello co-wrote with wife and ex-Pogue Cait O'Riordan. During the pauses between Costello's final tortured pangs of guitar, the 2,500 onlookers fell completely silent, leaving Costello small and exposed in his chair, but confident nonetheless.
Costello balanced out newer material with several classics, including a dissonant, fiery "Watching the Detectives," the trademark "New Amsterdam," Lennon/McCartney's "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away," and the country-tinged "Radio Sweetheart," which closed out his eleven song first set. A second set, which featured more recent songs, was the evening's finest. Costello began with the biting "I Hope You're Happy Now" from Blood & Chocolate ("I knew then what I know now / I never loved you anyhow") and "Let Him Dangle" from Spike.
After meditating on self-doubt in "Brilliant Mistake," Costello closed the set with the most powerful performance of the evening (and perhaps the best — and longest — song Costello has written), the chilling "I Want You." The reiterative calls of "I want you" ranged from whispers to screams, and the song ended with the stage completely black except for Costello's tortured face, lit in a haunting blue light as he rasped his final desires from his throat — "I want you..."
After a short break, accompanied by thunderous classical music, frenetic light effects, and trailed by an eight-foot high stuffed heart, Costello returned — wielding a pitchfork? "From now on, I am Monseigneur Napoleon Dynamite, and you are my sinners!" he screeched.
Pointing with his pitchfork to the "Broken Heart of Deadly Sins" ("a stage prop Houdini left in the basement of the theater after his last gig"), Costello explained that members of the audience would be responsible for unveiling those sins — and determining what songs he would play in the process. After obtaining the assistance of four women from the audience (procured by the "Wolfman"), Monseigneur Dynamite had each woman pick a sin from the heart — "Quayle" ("It's like the sin of intelligence"), "Sincerity," "Getting Caught," and "Getting Caught Again."
For their assistance, the women were rewarded with personal favorites — "Last Night the Bottle let Me Down," a bittersweet version of "Alison," "Red Shoes," and a mature reappraisal of 1983's "Everyday I Write the Book." Costello's act as Monseigneur Dynamite was fresh and amusing, and reinforced his reputation as an artist who enjoys interaction with his audience, at least on superficial levels.
The surprise of the night was Costello's one encore, an electric, much extended version of "Pump It Up." Mixed over a heavy funk house beat, and complemented with Prince lyrics and snatches of the Beatles' "Revolution," E.C. showed that his little hands of concrete can still rip through a tune on an electric. The show ended with a wave of distorted howls from Costello's guitar, leaving the audience a bit surprised, but content.
Costello proved himself a feisty, bitter man who simply won't be satisfied — after fifteen records, his bitterness has only slightly diminished. Yet the thirty-four-year-old's channelled anger was regularly offset by his humor — "God's Comic" became a stand-up comedy routine, and "I'm Not Satisfied" ("a tribute to Justine Bateman") left the audience reeling. Anyone who came to the show doubting Costello's ability to translate songs from arranged versions on record to solo acoustic accompaniment was most likely convinced: in Costello's case, stripped-down renditions of songs are often the most immediate and powerful. Without cluttered backing arrangements (as on his recent Saturday Night Live ap pearance), the audience could focus on Costello's superb singing (not to be confused with a superb voice) and crafty wordplay. Convincing and impassioned throughout, and occasionally brilliant ("Baby Plays Around" and "I Want You"), the angry but humorous Spike showed that after twelve years of recording and touring, he can, on his own merit, still burn down little palaces.
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