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What immediately strikes home on listening to this live concert recording from June 4, 1978, is just how remarkably creative Costello was at the time.
“All songs written by Elvis Costello” it says in smallprint on the CD – and what songs: Accidents Will Happen, Lip Service, Alison, (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes, This Year’s Girl, Lipstick Vogue, Watching The Detectives, (I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea – the songs roll on, 20 in all, and not a duff one among them.
At 23, Costello had two albums behind him and an up-and-down, always-changing musical career ahead of him, but he didn’t know that, and he wraps himself into the exhilaration of the moment, his voice is still supple and strong, the Attractions are tremendous, especially Steve Nieve on keyboards, and the sheer sense of hard-edged fun is impossible to resist.
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