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Thousands of fans will hear Elvis Costello at Poplar Creek Wednesday night, but when he played the Riviera Night Club all last week, the hall was practically empty.
Of course, that's the way Costello wanted it. Every afternoon Costello and his accompanying musicians rehearsed for five hours at the Riv, and what sounded like a diverse musical aggregation at the beginning of the week seemed like a real band by the end.
The first surprise about the band that Costello has dubbed the Rude Five is that it includes six musicians in addition to Elvis. Guitarist Marc Ribot and percussionist Michael Blair are familiar from the band of Tom Waits. Bassist Jerry Scheff and keyboardist Larry Knechtel are veteran West Coast session aces (Scheff's credits include a stint with the other Elvis, while Knechtel played on hits by the Mamas and the Papas, Johnny Rivers and many others). Guitarist Steven Soles played with Costello's buddy T Bone Burnett in the Alpha Band and currently manages and produces Peter Case. Drummer Pete Thomas is the only holdover from the Attractions, the band that long has backed Costello.
A musical mongrel that spans geography, generation and style, the band offers the sort of breadth that Costello's eclecticism requires. When the Attractions, a brilliant band, backed Costello, they made every song sound like an Attractions song. The Rude Five represents a more ambitious hybrid, as the edgy aggressiveness of Thomas' drumming meets the rootsier American richness provided by Scheff and Knechtel, with Blair and Ribot adding all sorts of multi-instrumental twists and textures. Ribot and marimba — or was that glockenspiel? — by Blair, adding musical flesh to what previously had been the most furious of Costello's bare-bones rockers.
The repertoire that Costello and band developed during the week ranges from early hits to much of the recent Spike album as well as obscure covers such as "Leave My Kitten Alone." Costello also be will performing solo at Poplar Creek. Expect the unexpected.
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