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Elvis Costello is at the point in his career where he could've strolled into the Chicago Theatre on Saturday, gone on autopilot and satiated the sold-out audience with a greatest-hits set. A few of his slightly elder peers recently pursued that approach earlier in the month at California's Desert Trip festival, where the price of nostalgia started at a few hundred dollars. For Costello, following such a script would be too easy — and boring.
Rather than conform to predictability, the restless 62-year-old singer continued the innovative streak he's ridden for almost four decades. Digging deep into his back catalog, he revisited a majority of 1982's Imperial Bedroom — an album renowned for its ambitious arrangements and stylistic diversity. The London native and his band, the Imposters, wisely ignored the original order and played the material according to mood. They also drew on other originals with similar themes of domestic malaise, deception, sabotage and shame.
Recognizing irony can lend to levity, Costello disguised much of the bitterness and disenchantment in crafty melodies that often framed the words with cheerful settings. Two female backup vocalists helped give songs a more soulful, less orchestrated feel. Stripped of large-scale studio ornamentation, fare such as "…And in Every Home" and "The Long Honeymoon" found their grand sweep downsized to miniature form. In terrific voice, Costello crooned and serenaded, cried and shouted, taking stock of unspeakable relationship ills while unfurling lyrics with encyclopedic depth.
Several song sequences arrived in breathless spurts, including an emotionally vicious "Pidgin English" and "You Little Fool," each goosed with big beats and towering refrains. Many tunes traded pop smoothness for R&B grit and funk simplicity. Costello and company danced outside conventional parameters, reshaping even familiar works.
An extended "Everyday I Write the Book" flirted with disco trappings. Played into a stand-alone microphone, "Alison" came across like a ballad sent up with a Muscle Shoals gospel accent. Instrumental to the success of nearly every song, pianist/ keyboardist Steve Nieve reinvigorated "Watching the Detectives" with arch drama that evoked introductory themes to classic television crime dramas.
The noir vibes spilled over to homages to Tin Pan Alley ("Shot With His Own Gun"), torch ("Almost Blue") and baroque classicism (a devastating "This House Is Empty Now"). Costello further challenged himself and the crowd by performing three unreleased showtune-leaning songs, the best of which was "Blood & Hot Sauce," a ragtime on par with Randy Newman's most sardonic compositions.
The evening's lone downfall had nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the horrendous sound. Hollow and imbalanced, it made passages inaudible and detracted from the overall experience.
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