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ALBANY, N.Y. — Playing a short but intense set of his own rock 'n' roll tunes Sunday night, Elvis Costello enlivened an audience whose spirits at first seemed to be somewhat dampened by the rain outside. Taking things firmly in hand, however, he lived up to the praise he's received since his unheralded first lp was released to an unsuspecting audience scarcely a year and a half ago.
Since then there have been two more records, and another one can't be far behind. He prominently showcased new material Sunday night in an appearance at Albany's Palace Theatre. In the first half of the show, fully five of nine songs were new.
Presenting new songs in concert is always a difficult problem for a musician, particularly one like Elvis Costello, whose reputation deservedly rests on his studio-recorded efforts.
Until recently, his appearances in this country have been few, and he threatened last year after a concert tour never to return to the U.S. He also faces an audience of fans nourished by his laudatory reviews, expecting to hear the songs they already know to be good. But he deftly handled presenting the new tunes, despite some seeming uncertainty at times with the best approach to take with them.
Elvis Costello, legend has it, is a former computer operator from the north of England who staged his first audition by setting up his guitar and playing outside a London hotel where a record company conference was taking place. He was arrested by the police, but he got a contract.
His vital first album My Aim Is True came out of nowhere in the spring of 1977, right about in the middle of Britain's New Wave enthusiasm. As a result, he was often classed as an aberration of the punk movement, although a careful listener could detect something else more unique going on.
First of all, there was his name. Was it an attempt to cash in on Presley's fame, as some charged? To make the name even more questionable, Elvis died shortly after Costello released his first album in the U.S.
He possesses a visceral popular musical sense, tempered by a reverence for tradition and an eye for detail.
But such impressions are incidental to the music, which is really how he should be evaluated. Sunday, his songs shined through. He performed most of the tunes from his new album, Armed Forces, several from his second, This Year's Model, and only two songs from his first. They were "Alison," a song subsequently recorded by Linda Ronstadt, and "Watching the Detectives."
The new songs were impressive. Opening with a tune called "I Stand Accused," he went on to play several more, including the best of the lot, a rhythmically percussive song called "Chelsea." He also played a hew song he said he wrote that day, called "High Fidelity."
After playing for one hour, Costello closed with "Radio, Radio" and returned for a two-song rave-up encore: "Pump It Up" and "You Belong to Me," both from his second album. It was about 70 minutes worth of music, including the encore. Albany fans were fortunate, in a sense, because earlier shows in the current tour were reported to be even shorter.
Despite much of the show's first half being devoted to new songs that were unfamiliar to most of the audience, he was able to bridge the gap of unfamiliarity by the strength of the performances.
Unfortunately, much of the subtlety of the songs went out the window (or, more accurately, bounced off the walls) because of poor sound quality. A lot of the sound was muddy due to what was probably a poor mix that was made all the more apparent by the loudness of Costello's voice. But at least you could understand most of what he sang, although some comments he made about American radio stations before launching into "Radio, Radio" got lost in the vastness of the hall.
Elvis Costello is one of the finest pop songwriters working today. Like Dylan at his strongest, he has an epigrammatic mind rather than an epic one. His catchy melodies are laid under choppy lyrics driven along at times by a sardonic wit that is strikingly unsentimental. While Dylan has used a broader range of emotions in his songwriting, Costello can match many of Dylan's great songs despite the brevity and pronounced pop orientation of many of the tunes, particularly off the new lp.
As with Costello's evolution over the last three albums, his future work bears close attention. As he demonstrated Sunday in Albany, his songwriting ability is still growing, and his musical inventiveness is refreshing.
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