Elvis Costello is ready for Linkoping
LINKÖPING flip a switch for Linkoping Aktuelle superstar Elvis Costello. One evening, he can stand in front of 100,000 liked jazz festival, and the next evening kick ass at a club gig for a couple of hundred in the audience.
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In Linköping on Sunday night becomes Elvis Costello alone on stage. Not that he has to play with the house band The Imposters. But the shows alone gives him more freedom to improvise.
- I take pride in every night to offer something unique. A story that is suitable for the local or the mood I'm in. My songs for the plot forward, and I do not want to become predictable. Oldies signs up, some of them get a new suit for the evening, he says on the phone from Paddington, London, not far from the address where he was born 60 years ago.
Is the audience involved in the show in any way?
- Yes, the audience reactions can sometimes affect the content. But someone has to take responsibility for the performance.
So live a little control freak in Mr. Costello?
- I like in and of itself to improvise. But it may not be chaotic. I have written about 500 songs, but have no desire to be some kind of living jukebox, the ambition is bigger than that. I can not stand still in one spot and do the same thing all the time. I never really closes some doors, rather I go around in a revolving door, where the old songs or music styles enroll again.
Elvis Costello's late almost 40 years great friend of Sweden. Along with punk band The Attractions, he toured the folk parks just a year after the 1977 breakthrough with the album " My aim is true."
What do you remember from the tour?
- It was amazing. To play on the working class establishment, it was great. But the prohibition to bring alcohol into the park people got right comedic consequences. Instead, the audience sat in the cars outside and drank vodka, solved entrance on shaky legs, to then go wild and crazy when we started playing.
Yeah, I remember that ...
- So you were One of those guys ha ha, he whinnies and blots (probably) the anterior aperture, which is as well known as the hat and the black Buddy Holly spectacles.
Then, in July 1978 appeared Elvis and the band also on the Song Festival in Västervik. Costello - rock nerd and the live pop music lexicon - remember the impact of Stegeholm castle ruins as if it were yesterday.
- It was the first time I met Benny Andersson. ABBA were truly mega big in England right now and as a tribute, we submitted " Knowing Me, Knowing You". We were, strangely enough, the sense that the Swedes do not really summarized how popular the group was abroad.
What do you remember more from the town?
- We played "unplugged" in Västervik several years before the term was invented. They placed us on the high bar stools and we sat there and pretended to be England's answer to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Meeting Benny was important to me, it eventually led to that I got to work with another of my favorite Swedish: Anne Sofie von Otter.
Elvis Costello was in the audience more than once when the Swedish mezzo-star guest appearances in London and composed songs for her, some of them eventually ended up at the joint pop album "For the Stars".
Now that was not the first time Elvis worked with classical musicians. " The Juliet Letters" as Elvis composed and performed with the world famous greats in Brodsky Quartet was a true avant-garde projects. All four string players and Elvis himself created this song cycle inspired by a literature teacher who responded to letters written to Shakespeare's Juliet.
Elvis is emulated against most of popular music genres. However, what in my opinion is really Unique Elvis was there from the beginning: ingenious, elaborate lyrics and a balanced blend of pop, punk, country and pub-rock. Today, spiced with string quartet sounds and konnässörspop.
If the hit singles are now conspicuous by their absence as the collaboration with the two biggest icons of the pop world meant a lot to Costello's validity. In 1989 he appeared on Paul McCartney s " Flowers in the Dirt". Wrote songs with Paul, sang and played guitar and as a thank you helped Paul to the Elvis album "Spike".
- We wrote the song "Veronica" together, and thought about the group name The Two Macs, (McCartney & MacManus), says Elvis.
Even greater attention brought the album " Painted from memory" where Elvis wrote the lyrics and sang Burt Bacharach's melodies.
- We have taken up the thread again and composed new songs of the character that is on the album. We aim to write a musical with songs from "Painted From Memory" as a basis.
How was it to work together with låtskrivargenier as Bacharach and McCartney?
- I have no formal musical training, but I got a lot out of these two partnerships. Maybe I did not understand it while it lasted, but it was so in all cases. Paul and Burt are warm, generous people, who do not try rushing anything mediocre. And amazing at creating melodies that are easy to sing, even though they are often harmonically complex.
Will you play something from "Painted From Memory" on Sunday?
- Perhaps, it remains to be seen. I just know that it will be used interchangeably. I have different guitars and a piano with me on stage, so the audience does not think the comp is too monotonous.
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