Arts Desk, June 9, 2022: Difference between revisions

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Elvis Costello & The Imposters — screams not whispers

Nick Hasted

A full-on Elvis offers punk thunder and a saving touch of intimacy

Elvis Costello & The Imposters
Brighton Dome

The usherette's hands are clamped over her ears, and Elvis Costello is playing like it's 1996, when the briefly reunited Attractions played a pummelling last stand, burying fatal internal rifts with punk thunder.

The Imposters — the Attractions with recalcitrant bassist Bruce Thomas replaced by Davey Faragher — have lately crowned their own long association with a brace of acclaimed albums increasingly resembling the clenched, agile music made in Costello's initial pomp.

Their 2020 UK tour even returned to the sticky-floored, standing-room halls of those ferocious days — the Liverpool Olympia in Elvis's childhood neighbourhood of West Derby, playing a last, poignant show for his mum, and the Sunderland Empire. There were soulful backing singers then, as empathetic regret laced the resurgent roar.

This opening date of Costello's UK return is a different kind of show, with the Brighton Dome all-seated, and the bar closed. It's disconcerting as the band's fuzzed-up urgency is met by immobile rows, a ritual bond sundered by rock's respectability and ageing adherents. Backing singers are also out, and pompadoured Texan guitarist Charlie Sexton, for so long Dylan's foil, in.

"Accidents Will Happen," with Pete Thomas's crunching drum tattoos, makes the usherette fear for her hearing early on. When the volume settles down, new songs show Costello remodelling the classic Attractions sound. Post-Brexit protest "No Flag," from Hey Clockface (2020), fires siren-like flares over subterranean bass, with an awareness of hip-hop aesthetics.

"Hetty O'Hara Confidential," part of the same album's wry raising of old showbiz ghosts, is sung under yellow klieg lights with a vintage, distorting mic, staccato swing underpinning Costello's quick, riffing communion with Steve Nieve's keyboards. "Mystery Dance," from 1977, is followed by "The Difference," from 2022's The Boy Named If, themes of innocence and experience echoing through the years.

The country-soul Elvis and the Imposters explored on one of their best records, The Delivery Man (2004) — represented tonight by forlorn ballad "Either Side of the Same Town" — is the main stylistic counterpoint to their rock attack.

Costello has been in Brighton for a few days before this gig, and the Jubilee weekend gets wryly hostile barbs — misjudging some moods in a relieved, communal moment, but maintaining an abrasive nature undimmed by what he calls "that worthless gong," the OBE accepted in a tangle of human contradictions that Elvis, now aged 67, has also grown to admit.

King of America's "Brilliant Mistake" is taken as a ballroom rumba, Thomas switching to soft mallets, and Costello clinging to his crooner's mic, where he interpolates Depression-era ballad "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," in which Al Dubin's Costello-worthy lyric leaves "my soul behind me, in an old cathedral town".

"Watching the Detectives" is a Sixties beat group B-movie, arranged by Nieve's keyboard art, and lit red like murder. But it's "The Comedians," a song from Costello's Eighties nadir, which suddenly locates that time's atmosphere, with its brutality and sorrow, betrayal and shame: showbiz with a miasma of Thatcher.

A raging "Pump It Up," Nieve stabbing his keyboard with the crowd happily on its feet, and an epic "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" are the usual finale, shorn now of "Oliver's Army," the nuances of one of its words in an absolutist time having defeated even Elvis.

The intimacy that's really been absent becomes clear just before that. "We've got to live for the moment," Costello says. "And this is one of those moments." And he sings "Alison," mixed with The Boy Named If's "Mr Crescent," the lancing pains of sex and love enduring through his songbook. It's lonesome, blue country-soul, which drops down to just Elvis shadowed by Sexton, as tears well.

Costello's talent as a sometimes political balladeer has proved his most profound songwriting strength. Amidst the screams, whispers were missed.

Tags: Brighton Dome • Brighton • The Imposters • Steve Nieve • Davey Faragher • Pete Thomas • Charlie Sexton • The Boy Named If & Other Favourites Tour • Just Trust Tour • Eventim Olympia • Sunderland Empire • Bob Dylan • Accidents Will Happen • No Flag • Hey Clockface • Hetty O'Hara Confidential • Mystery Dance • The Difference • The Boy Named If • The Delivery Man • Either Side Of The Same Town • King Of America • Brilliant Mistake • Boulevard Of Broken Dreams • Al Dubin • Watching The Detectives • The Comedians • Margaret Thatcher • Pump It Up • (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding? • Oliver's Army • Alison • Mr. Crescent • The Attractions • Bruce Thomas • OBE

The Arts Desk, June 9, 2022

Nick Hasted reviews Elvis Costello & The Imposters with Charlie Sexton, Sunday, June 5, 2022, Brighton Dome, Brighton, England.

Images

Photos credit: Mark Seliger

External links

Retrieved from "http://elviscostello.info//wiki/index.php?title=Arts_Desk,_June_9,_2022&oldid=17515478"

Categories:

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 {{:UK online publications index}}
 {{Bibliography article header}}
-<center><h3> Elvis Costello & The Imposters, Brighton Dome review - screams, not whispers </h3></center>
+<center><h3> Elvis Costello & The Imposters — screams{{nb}}not{{nb}}whispers </h3></center>
-<center>''' A full-on Elvis offers punk thunder and a saving touch of intimacy </center>
 ----
 <center> Nick Hasted </center>
 ----
+'''A full-on Elvis offers punk thunder and a saving touch of intimacy
+'''Elvis Costello & The Imposters <br>
+Brighton Dome <br>
 {{4of5stars}}
 {{Bibliography text}}
-The usherette’s hands are clamped over her ears, and Elvis Costello is playing like it’s 1996, when the briefly reunited Attractions played a pummelling last stand, burying fatal internal rifts with punk thunder.
+The usherette's hands are clamped over her ears, and Elvis Costello is playing like it's 1996, when the briefly reunited Attractions played a pummelling last stand, burying fatal internal rifts with punk thunder.
+The Imposters — the Attractions with recalcitrant bassist Bruce Thomas replaced by Davey Faragher — have lately crowned their own long association with a brace of acclaimed albums increasingly resembling the clenched, agile music made in Costello's initial pomp.
+Their 2020 UK tour even returned to the sticky-floored, standing-room halls of those ferocious days — the Liverpool Olympia in Elvis's childhood neighbourhood of West Derby, playing a last, poignant show for his mum, and the Sunderland Empire. There were soulful backing singers then, as empathetic regret laced the resurgent roar.
+This opening date of Costello's UK return is a different kind of show, with the Brighton Dome all-seated, and the bar closed. It's disconcerting as the band's fuzzed-up urgency is met by immobile rows, a ritual bond sundered by rock's respectability and ageing adherents. Backing singers are also out, and pompadoured Texan guitarist Charlie Sexton, for so long Dylan's foil, in.
+"Accidents Will Happen," with Pete Thomas's crunching drum tattoos, makes the usherette fear for her hearing early on. When the volume settles down, new songs show Costello remodelling the classic Attractions sound. Post-Brexit protest "No Flag," from ''Hey Clockface'' (2020), fires siren-like flares over subterranean bass, with an awareness of hip-hop aesthetics.
-The Imposters – the Attractions with recalcitrant bassist Bruce Thomas replaced by Davey Faragher – have lately crowned their own long association with a brace of acclaimed albums increasingly resembling the clenched, agile music made in Costello’s initial pomp. Their 2020 UK tour even returned to the sticky-floored, standing-room halls of those ferocious days – the Liverpool Olympia in Elvis’s childhood neighbourhood of West Derby, playing a last, poignant show for his mum, and the Sunderland Empire. There were soulful backing singers then, as empathetic regret laced the resurgent roar.
+"Hetty O'Hara Confidential," part of the same album's wry raising of old showbiz ghosts, is sung under yellow klieg lights with a vintage, distorting mic, staccato swing underpinning Costello's quick, riffing communion with Steve Nieve's keyboards. "Mystery Dance," from 1977, is followed by "The Difference," from 2022's ''The Boy Named If'', themes of innocence and experience echoing through the years.
-This opening date of Costello’s UK return is a different kind of show, with the Brighton Dome all-seated, and the bar closed. It’s disconcerting as the band’s fuzzed-up urgency is met by immobile rows, a ritual bond sundered by rock’s respectability and ageing adherents. Backing singers are also out, and pompadoured Texan guitarist Charlie Sexton, for so long Dylan’s foil, in.
+The country-soul Elvis and the Imposters explored on one of their best records, ''The Delivery Man'' (2004) — represented tonight by forlorn ballad "Either Side of the Same Town" — is the main stylistic counterpoint to their rock attack.
-“Accidents Will Happen”, with Pete Thomas’s crunching drum tattoos, makes the usherette fear for her hearing early on. When the volume settles down, new songs show Costello remodelling the classic Attractions sound. Post-Brexit protest “No Flag”, from ''Hey Clockface'' (2020), fires siren-like flares over subterranean bass, with an awareness of hip-hop aesthetics. “Hetty O’Hara Confidential”, part of the same album’s wry raising of old showbiz ghosts, is sung under yellow klieg lights with a vintage, distorting mic, staccato swing underpinning Costello’s quick, riffing communion with Steve Nieve’s keyboards. “Mystery Dance”, from 1977, is followed by “The Difference”, from 2022’s ''The Boy Named If'', themes of innocence and experience echoing through the years.
+Costello has been in Brighton for a few days before this gig, and the Jubilee weekend gets wryly hostile barbs — misjudging some moods in a relieved, communal moment, but maintaining an abrasive nature undimmed by what he calls "that worthless gong," the OBE accepted in a tangle of human contradictions that Elvis, now aged 67, has also grown to admit.
-The country-soul Elvis and the Imposters explored on one of their best records, ''The Delivery Man'' (2004) – represented tonight by forlorn ballad “Either Side of the Same Town” – is the main stylistic counterpoint to their rock attack.
+''King of America'''s "Brilliant Mistake" is taken as a ballroom rumba, Thomas switching to soft mallets, and Costello clinging to his crooner's mic, where he interpolates Depression-era ballad "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," in which Al Dubin's Costello-worthy lyric leaves ''"my soul behind me, in an old cathedral town".''
-Costello has been in Brighton for a few days before this gig, and the Jubilee weekend gets wryly hostile barbs – misjudging some moods in a relieved, communal moment, but maintaining an abrasive nature undimmed by what he calls “that worthless gong”, the OBE accepted in a tangle of human contradictions that Elvis, now aged 67, has also grown to admit.
+"Watching the Detectives" is a Sixties beat group B-movie, arranged by Nieve's keyboard art, and lit red like murder. But it's "The Comedians," a song from Costello's Eighties nadir, which suddenly locates that time's atmosphere, with its brutality and sorrow, betrayal and shame: showbiz with a miasma of Thatcher.
-''King of America''’s “Brilliant Mistake” is taken as a ballroom rumba, Thomas switching to soft mallets, and Costello clinging to his crooner’s mic, where he interpolates Depression-era ballad “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, in which Al Dubin’s Costello-worthy lyric leaves “my soul behind me, in an old cathedral town”. “Watching the Detectives” is a Sixties beat group B-movie, arranged by Nieve’s keyboard art, and lit red like murder. But it’s “The Comedians”, a song from Costello’s Eighties nadir, which suddenly locates that time’s atmosphere, with its brutality and sorrow, betrayal and shame: showbiz with a miasma of Thatcher.
+A raging "Pump It Up," Nieve stabbing his keyboard with the crowd happily on its feet, and an epic "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" are the usual finale, shorn now of "Oliver's Army," the nuances of one of its words in an absolutist time having defeated even Elvis.
-A raging “Pump It Up”, Nieve stabbing his keyboard with the crowd happily on its feet, and an epic “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” are the usual finale, shorn now of “Oliver’s Army”, the nuances of one of its words in an absolutist time having defeated even Elvis.
+The intimacy that's really been absent becomes clear just before that. "We've got to live for the moment," Costello says. "And this is one of those moments." And he sings "Alison," mixed with ''The Boy Named If'''s "Mr Crescent," the lancing pains of sex and love enduring through his songbook. It's lonesome, blue country-soul, which drops down to just Elvis shadowed by Sexton, as tears well.
-The intimacy that’s really been absent becomes clear just before that. “We’ve got to live for the moment,” Costello says. “And this is one of those moments.” And he sings “Alison”, mixed with ''The Boy Named If''’s “Mr Crescent”, the lancing pains of sex and love enduring through his songbook. It’s lonesome, blue country-soul, which drops down to just Elvis shadowed by Sexton, as tears well. Costello’s talent as a sometimes political balladeer has proved his most profound songwriting strength. Amidst the screams, whispers were missed.
+Costello's talent as a sometimes political balladeer has proved his most profound songwriting strength. Amidst the screams, whispers were missed.
 {{cx}}
-{{Tags}}[[The Imposters]] {{-}} [[The Dome|Brighton Dome]] {{-}} [[The Attractions]] {{-}} [[Bruce Thomas]] {{-}} [[Davey Faragher]] {{-}} [[Just Trust Tour]]  {{-}} [[Eventim Olympia]] {{-}} [[Empire Theatre (Sunderland)|Sunderland Empire]] {{-}} [[Charlie Sexton]] {{-}} [[Bob Dylan]] {{-}} [[Accidents Will Happen]] {{-}} [[Pete Thomas]] {{-}} [[No Flag]] {{-}} [[Hey Clockface]] {{-}} [[Hetty O'Hara Confidential]] {{-}} [[Steve Nieve]] {{-}} [[Mystery Dance]] {{-}} [[The Difference]] {{-}} [[The Boy Named If]] {{-}} [[The Delivery Man]] {{-}} [[Either Side Of The Same Town]] {{-}} [[King Of America]] {{-}} [[Brilliant Mistake]] {{-}} [[Boulevard Of Broken Dreams]] {{-}} [[Al Dubin]] {{-}} [[Watching The Detectives]] {{-}} [[The Comedians]] {{-}} [[Pump It Up]] {{-}} [[(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?]] {{-}} [[Oliver's Army]] {{-}} [[Alison]] {{-}} [[Mr. Crescent]]
+{{tags}}[[Concert 2022-06-05 Brighton|Brighton Dome]] {{-}} [[Brighton]] {{-}} [[The Imposters]] {{-}} [[Steve Nieve]] {{-}} [[Davey Faragher]] {{-}} [[Pete Thomas]] {{-}} [[Charlie Sexton]] {{-}} [[The Boy Named If & Other Favourites Tour]] {{-}} [[Just Trust Tour]]  {{-}} [[Concert 2020-02-28 Liverpool|Eventim Olympia]] {{-}} [[Concert 2020-03-03 Sunderland|Sunderland Empire]] {{-}} [[Bob Dylan]] {{-}} [[Accidents Will Happen]] {{-}} [[No Flag]] {{-}} [[Hey Clockface]] {{-}} [[Hetty O'Hara Confidential]] {{-}} [[Mystery Dance]] {{-}} [[The Difference]] {{-}} [[The Boy Named If]] {{-}} [[The Delivery Man]] {{-}} [[Either Side Of The Same Town]] {{-}} [[King Of America]] {{-}} [[Brilliant Mistake]] {{-}} [[Boulevard Of Broken Dreams]] {{-}} [[Al Dubin]] {{-}} [[Watching The Detectives]] {{-}} [[The Comedians]] {{-}} [[Margaret Thatcher]] {{-}} [[Pump It Up]] {{-}} [[(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?]] {{-}} [[Oliver's Army]] {{-}} [[Alison]] {{-}} [[Mr. Crescent]] {{-}} [[The Attractions]] {{-}} [[Bruce Thomas]] {{-}} [[OBE]]
 {{cx}}
@@ Line 37: / Line 48: @@
 {{Bibliography notes}}
+{{Bibliography next
+|prev = Arts Desk, January 15, 2022
+|next = :Category:Arts Desk
+}}
 '''The Arts Desk, June 9, 2022
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 {{Bibliography images}}
-[[image:2022-01-12 Sydney Morning Herald photo 01 ms.jpg|x240px|border]]<br>
-[[image:2022-06-09 Arts Desk photo 01 ms.jpg|x180px|border]]<br>
-<small>Photos credit: [[Mark Seliger]]</small>
+<!-- [[image:2022-01-12 Sydney Morning Herald photo 01 ms.jpg|x240px|border]]<br>-->
+[[image:2022-06-09 Arts Desk photo 01 ms.jpg|280px|border|link=]]
+<br><small>Photos credit: [[Mark Seliger]]</small>
 {{Bibliography notes footer}}
@@ Line 55: / Line 70: @@
 *[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Arts_Desk Wikipedia: The Arts Desk]
-{{DEFAULTSORT:Arts Desk 2022-06-09}
+{{DEFAULTSORT:Arts Desk 2022-06-09}}
 [[Category:Bibliography]]
 [[Category:Bibliography 2022]]
@@ Line 61: / Line 76: @@
 [[Category:Online articles]]
 [[Category:2022 concert reviews]]
+[[Category:The Boy Named If & Other Favourites Tour|~Arts Desk 2022-06-09]]

Arts Desk, June 9, 2022: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 20:41, 8 March 2023

Elvis Costello & The Imposters — screams not whispers

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