|
Finally, the Elvis Costello concert we'd all been waiting for.
The self-appointed "King of America" ripped through a high-energy rendition of new music and popular favorites, many of them his earliest releases, on Thursday night at a chilly Paolo Soleri amphitheater.
Elvis and his band, the Impostors, rocked, and one may look for their motivation in pride of musicianship. But anyone at the show knows the truth. It was cold. Movement meant warmth. Elvis rocked for survival.
Not one to clutter his performance with chatty banter, the crooner of "Alison" and "Watching the Detectives" paused early to note, "Lovely weather we're having," then later to ask the approximately 2,000 in attendance whether he'd ever been to New Mexico before and thank us all for spending a "winter evening" together.
Costello seemed to start off slow, like a balky engine on an Anchorage Christmas morning. His timing on "Accidents Will Happen" seemed off, for one But once warmed up, the ensemble hummed. The Impostors — Steve Nieve and Pete Thomas, playing keyboards and drums respectively, and formerly of Costello's original band, the Attractions, joined Davey Faragher on bass to back up Costello.
Regardless of the temperature, somewhere in the 30s but made crueler still by periodic gusts, Costello and the Impostors turned loose an onslaught of Costello's best revved-up rock. No wimpy ballads or faux-country here, just the grit, sarcasm and caustic wit of "Tear Off Your Own Head," "Less Than Zero" and "Lipstick Vogue."
True, the performances were spiced with Costello's guitar perorations and Nieve's keyboard wizardry, and Costello embedded Smokey Robinson's "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" and Gentleman Jim Reeves' "He'll Have to Go" inside his own "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror" and "Alison," respectively. But these were pauses along the way, soul and country woven together into his 'own "soul rave," as one concertgoer remarked.
The four-piece band, fronted by Costello in a wool hat and black cowboy boots, cranked out 23 numbers (by my count) in a little less than two hours with barely a breath wasted, save those between two encores.
A rousing "Radio, Radio" nonetheless did little to assuage a vague feeling of irony. Here was the anti-celebrity of 1977 who ranted against corporate radio now singing that signature anthem at a performance brought to you by radio station KBAC. Nothing against the fine folks at Radio Free Santa Fe, but it is the property of Clear Channel, the largest radio conglomerate in the nation, which critics frequently accuse of exercising the same control upon which a younger Costello once spewed vitriol.
I found "My Mood Swings," with a slight rockabilly spin, and "Dust" the show highlights.
My companion for the evening, who'd never heard an Elvis Costello song other than "Veronica" (which he did not play), fell for the long version of "Uncomplicated," off the Blood & Chocolate album.
She preferred the warm-up band, a scrappy bunch of pogoing lads from Los Angeles calling themselves Phantom Planet. She wasn't alone. The Planets, too, thought themselves the better band.
| 
