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When the lights went down at Majestic Theatre on Friday night, the voice of a mid-century newsreel barker poured out across the historic venue's immaculate acoustics. It was audio lifted from the trailer for a 1965 black-and-white feature film, Monster A-Go-Go (widely regarded by cinephiles as one of the worst movies of all time).
"Never in your life have you seen such a combination of happy, sad, good, bad, rock-em sock-em action!" the announcement rang out, "Monster A-Go-Go! Monster A-Go-Go! Monster A-Go-Go!"
Indeed it would be, with songs of cheeky joy, nimble misanthropy and gorgeous heartbreak alike. It was a fitting introduction for Elvis Costello & The Imposters to take the stage.
After 47 years of writing, recording and performing, we're all quite lucky that one of the most influential songwriters of all time is still touring so prolifically. As he starts 2024 with this Southern-states outing (mysteriously dubbed The 7-0-7 Tour), there's no new material to promote — Elvis Costello and his longtime backing band seem to be out on the road simply for the love of the game, having just as much fun on stage as the fans are in the audience.
For almost a half-century now, Costello has proven himself to be a master of genre-play while still maintaining his singular style of sophisticated guitar-pop and unparalleled knack for crafting melodies in the context of everything from classical music to jazz standards and beyond. But in the past two decades, he's leaned heavily into elements of blues, finger-pickin' country music and traditional rockabilly — more akin to 1950s Sun Records compositions (like that other Elvis) than the '80s new wave commercial hits with which he's so widely associated. So, naturally, he was thrilled to be in Texas.
Throughout the night, he regaled a sold-out crowd with his fondest memories of North Texas in storytelling vignettes between songs that almost evoked the audiobook narration of his nearly-700-page autobiography, published in 2015, a veritable treasure trove of personal anecdotes from one of the most brilliant musical minds of our time.
"My first time in Dallas went by in a flash. I ended up somewhere I shouldn't have been at three in the morning. I had car keys in my pocket, but I didn't drive. I had house keys in my pocket that didn't belong to me," he riffed, "And they were playing all that new wave music on the radio. I fuckin' hate that music!"
Sounds pretty true to the Dallas nightlife experience, then and now. It was a delightfully tongue-in-cheek nod to the eternal lament of all musicians: the struggle of stylistic categorization and its perceptual limitations.
In particular, Costello conveyed a deep fondness for the city of Fort Worth. He spoke endearingly of recording there with T Bone Burnett and jazz bassist Ray Brown. As the story went, Brown once started off a take in one of those sessions with the warning, "OK, gentlemen, nobody play any ideas."
"That's still the greatest thing anyone's ever said to me while making an album," the bespectacled frontman gushed.
He even took the audience on a deep dive into early '60s rockabilly obscurity with covers of the virtually unknown single "My Baby Just Squeals (You Heel)" and its B-side, "I Don't Want Your Lyndon Johnson" — a used record store find by an unknown band that he swore was originally recorded in Fort Worth on a long-lost label called Justice Records. Instructing a call-and-response to the lyrics, he insisted the crowd sing along loud enough to be heard all the way out there in Cowtown.
Another major point of pride he referenced on stage was the lineup addition of Texas' own Charlie Sexton, standing in as guest guitarist with The Imposters on this tour. During a bluesy fill on the 1977 powerpop jaunt, "Waiting for the End of the World," Sexton's high-level soloing slithered through and wrapped around the form of Costello's first-album cut with incredible precision. But he was a largely underutilized presence throughout the whole of the set. It would have been great to see more of his technical prowess interpolated into fan favorites.
The highlight of the night came when some lovely soul in the standing-room orchestra pit called out for "Beyond Belief" (recently featured on the critically revered second season of FX's The Bear), which seemed to amuse Costello. A few songs later, he sat with a beautiful custom Spanish acoustic guitar in his lap and led The Imposters through a flawlessly improvised country-Western spin on the highly underrated cut from the 1982 album Imperial Bedroom. It was literally a revelation, with Elvis so earnestly excited to ask the audience, "Did you like that? That was the first time we've ever played that song like this!"
They did. They very much liked that. There couldn't have possibly been a warm body in the room without goosebumps. It was one of those rare one-in-a-million-chance live music moments for which you immediately feel grateful to be in the room.
Not all of these Southern blues-steeped arrangements flowed so seamlessly, though, as a slowed and twangy version of "Mystery Dance" came across way too subdued for an otherwise ferocious romp about the maddening sexual frustrations of youth.
Though the night was largely steeped in Southern influences, Elvis Costello does not mess around when it comes to the hits. Faithful versions of "Radio, Radio," "Pump It Up," "Alison," "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" brought the house down. "Clubland" dripped with bossa nova sensuality as pianist Steve Nieve tickled the keys and Costello spent the outro crooning The Specials' definitive doom-reggae hit, "Ghost Town."
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