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It was like seeing old friends again — Costello, the lyric magician and pop dramatist leading his reliable feisty Attractions, Lowe, the affable Mr Goodtime, thoroughly enjoying his little pop jokes, with usual good boys (Martin Belmont, Paul Carrack, Bobby Irwin) under yet another off-beat moniker. And they both felt as good, for slightly different reasons.
Almost seven years since the original Stiff tape and My Aim Is True, Nick Lowe is still opening shows for Costello and, to his credit, he doesn't seem to mind. Coming out to a half-empty house and closing to a full crowd crying for more, Lowe bopped brightly through an abbreviated set that barely touched on his spunky new Cowboy Outfit LP. He was dashing in his maroon Texas oil baron suit and contagiously animated as he led the Outfits through the Tex-Mex carnival organ-roll of "Half A Man And Half A Boy"; and good old "Marie Provost."
Okay, the best Lowe shows have always been in packed sweaty bars and his whole career is proof that you can take Lowe out of the pub but you can't take the pub rock out of Lowe. But tonight, the band had to fill a pretty big space and damned if they didn't succeed admirably.
For Costello, this show came barely five months after his acoustic US tour, but it was no less of a revelation. It was as if his time along on tour gave Costello and The Attractions a chance to recharge their batteries and re-think their relationship. A few reviews of Goodbye Cruel World suggested that, for all its merits, the album finds Costello's sophisticated playlets falling on sterile ground and that he's straining the parameters of his band.
But tonight they were right in step from the beginning. The opening segue from Steve Nieve's sinister classical piano tingle in "Watch Your Step" into the frantic hiss of "Lipstick Vogue" was not the work of ordinary craftsmen. Instead, they made old songs sound new — the fierce metallic staccato of "Watching The Detectives," a roaring "King Horse" — and made the new ones come alive. "Worthless Thing" with its smug, slow disco drive whipped straight into a brash unexpected take of the Byrds' "So You Want To Be A Rock 'N' Roll Star." "I Wanna Be Loved" glistened. "Peace In Our Time" (solo) bristled.
It could have been an easy conquest. But Costello worked for his win — two hours and four encores with three new songs. Which just goes to show you... old friends never let you down.
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