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"It's good to be back in the great state of Texas."
Elvis Costello is no one's circus monkey. The singer-songwriter was a progenitor — if not the primary architect — of British New Wave; he's influenced everyone from Radiohead to the National, enraged Lorne Michaels when he went off script in his 1977 SNL appearance, and was one of the few musical luminaries to appear as someone other than themselves in the 1997 cinema classic Spice World.
Costello (né Declan P. MacManus) occupies that enviable stratum in entertainment where he's been successful enough to make a (presumably) comfortable living at his chosen profession, but not so successful he feels the need to hew to expectations.
At any of his shows, the question remains: which Elvis will make an appearance? There's rockabilly Elvis, blues Elvis, earnest Elvis, rock 'n' roll Elvis, and folk Elvis. Happily (for some, more on that later), all of them made an appearance at House of Blues last night.
Backed by the impressive Impostors (keyboardist Steve Nieve, Pete Thomas on drums, bassist Davey Faragher, and Austin's own Charlie Sexton on guitar), Costello played a set designed to both please and piss off hardcore fans and casuals. Clad in a suit, trilby, and scarf (and often bathed in red spotlights) Costello and the Impostors performed stoically in spite of the HoB's muddy mix.
Early songs included cuts from Trust ("Strict Time") and debut My Aim Is True ("Waiting For the End of the World"). From there, the set ran the gamut from somewhat obscure (a rollicking "Hetty O'Hara Confidential", from 2020's Hey Clockface) to puzzling ("My Baby Just Squeals (You Heel)" and its not-so-cryptic B-side "I Don't Want Your Lyndon Johnson"), the fruits of a recent trip to a vinyl store in New Orleans, or so we're told.
That store, by the way, provided some of the biggest cheers of the night when Costello shouted out its 8-tracks.
Was it a bit contrarian for his not playing some of his bigger hits? Perhaps. We didn't hear his highest U.S. charting song ("Veronica") or "The Only Flame in Town," but Aim was well represented. The songs on which, he said, were partially inspired by "that Dutch fellow, Springsteen" and his songs about girls named Mary in red dresses at the tilt-a-whirl, whatever the fuck that is.
Certain audience members didn't do themselves any favors, going full Houston and hollering for "Pump It Up" and "Red Shoes" and Christ knows what else.
So as a result, we got a deliberately off-tempo "Watching the Detectives," a tent revivalist "Blood & Hot Sauce" (Costello's idea for a campaign song, apparently), a rockabillying "Like Licorice on Your Tongue." He briefly referenced his SNL debut (which writer Anne Beatts credited as her inspiration for the recurring "Nerds" sketch) and — in what might be a first for this writer — actually managed to shut a Houston crowd up for the intro to Mose Allison's "Everybody's Crying Mercy."
It wasn't the best night for H-Town audiences, but far from the worst. From the constant stream of fashionably late Boomers strolling it 45 minutes into the set to the mooks bellowing for The Hits like a bunch of Homer Simpsons demanding "Takin' Care of Business" from BTO, the show almost felt like an exercise in how many suburbanites he could drive away before the encore.
Quite a few, as it turns out. Costello can be a prickly fellow, but hot damn if it wasn't hilarious,.
So it was something of a shame the mix turned out as as bad as it was. His guitar and Faragher's bass were too high, while Costello's vocals were too restrained. "Pump It Up," which he finally played (almost resentfully), was barely recognizable until several bars in.
Even then, to be in the presence of a songwriter whose influence stretches across decades, and Elvis Costello is still as cheerfully garrulous and witty at 69 as he's ever been, was a treat. And seeing how many people came out on a frigid Wednesday night to celebrate his career was hopefully not lost on him.
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