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Elvis may be getting older, but he's still mean enough to make a difference.
This is Elvis Costello we're talking about, and though the prolific songwriter and vocalist has released a more orchestrated album in Spike, his debut on Warner Bros., many of the messages have the same passionate rage.
After all, check out the name of the backing band on Costello's current tour, which comes to the San Diego State University Open Air Theatre next Friday. The Rude 5 doesn't sound like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
While Costello can still spit out lengthy diatribes against the likes of Margaret Thatcher and others he perceives as morally and socially incorrect, he is also molding more and more songs of a personal nature. "Veronica," the respectable hit off Spike, is an often touching look at the effects of aging.
Costello's last San Diego appearance, an acoustic show two years ago with Nick Lowe, showed local audiences how Costello has become one of rock's respected elder statesmen, despite his age and his rage. He's done that through a continuing commitment to quality. Costello has yet to submit a bad record. In fact, he seems incapable so far of releasing a mediocre offering.
Costello once attacked the medium of radio in song. Even more sweet was the time Costello was told by the people on Saturday Night Live not to sing that song, "Radio, Radio" during his live appearance. That's right, he did it anyway, and wasn't invited back for years.
Today, Costello's songs are radio's friends, though it's a safe bet many of the music directors who recently picked up on songs from Spike are fairly clueless about Costello's distaste for the sad state of commercial radio.
But let's not hold Elvis back from the masses. If he shows the same passion for his songs as he enters middle age that he did as rock's angry young man, the people should get a chance to join the fracas.
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