Elvis Costello - 1978-04-14 Birmingham

<<   1978-04-14 Birmingham

ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ATTRACTIONS
Barbarella
Birmingham
14 April 1978

01. Waiting For The End Of The World
02. No Action (part)
03. Lip Service (part)
04. Less Than Zero
05. Hand In Hand
06. The Beat
07. (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
08. Alison
09. Miracle Man
10. (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea
11. Pump It Up
12. Watching The Detectives
13. You Belong To Me
14. Mystery Dance
15. Heart Of The City - vocals, Nick Lowe

Elvis Costello - vocals, guitar
Steve Nieve - keyboards
Pete Thomas - drums
Nick Lowe - bass guitar, vocals


40 years on................ 
After the incredible concert in Portsmouth, this is the second of two nights in Britain's second city and there is an air of ease about the playing which is brought about by the increased familiarity between Nick and the other Attractions as musicians rather than as producer and players. No surprises in this set and, since it is a decent, rather than startling recording, probably only for completists. Halfway through Waiting For The End Of the World, one channel cuts out and I've used the source of the other channel to turn it into a mono track but after it returns, it stays in "reasonable stereo" as they used to say on Stiff 7" singles. There are cuts at the end of No Action and the beginning of Lip Service (which only lasts 48 seconds) and at the start of Mystery Dance but otherwise the recording was pretty much in perfect pitch and I only adjusted the levels from my original cassette recording. It's one of a number of shows I traded for back in the early 80s and I have no idea about source or lineage. It is interesting to hear the Attractions try and play like a thrash punk band in Heart Of the City ! Somehow it seems a little demeaning, like seeing you Mum in a low cut plunge bra ! 
Lineage : TDK SA C90 cassette>Sony TC WE475 cassette player > Sony CD Recorder W100>CD-R> EAC >Nero 8 for song separation and volume adjustment, stereo processing for part of WFTEOTW>FLAC