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Elvis Costello and The Imposters returned to Summerfest on the Big Gig's first Saturday night as part of the ongoing "We're All Going On A Summer Holiday" tour and it only seems right that Costello brought Nick Lowe along for the ride.
Both played in the BMO Harris Pavilion, and Lowe performed with the band Los Straitjackets.
The pair's relationship goes back to the very beginning of Costello's career, when Lowe produced Costello's iconic run of his first five albums, from 1977's My Aim Is True to 1981's Trust.
Five years later, they reunited for the rough and ready Blood & Chocolate, and in 1994, Lowe played bass on much of Brutal Youth, an album that at the time many suggested was a return to the "angry young man" form of Costello's early career.
It should be noted here, too, that Lowe penned "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding," when he was a member of Brinsley Schwarz, but the song has become an anthem that is closely identified with Costello's energetic 1979 version.
These days Lowe continues to tour with his Yep Roc labelmates Los Straitjackets, who are instantly "recognizable" by the Mexican wrestling masks they don onstage.
While Lowe and Los Straitjackets might at first glance seem an odd combination — one with a gimmick, the other entirely gimmick-free — they work well together.
Together they've released a series of EPs and 2020's Walkabout. Lowe's latest solo effort was the 2013 Christmas album, Quality Street: A Seasonal Selection for All the Family.
Their set kicked off with a poppy Lowe classic, "So It Goes," followed by his "Ragin' Eyes," "Without Love" and a couple other gems, including the lovely country ballad, "Lately I've Let Things Slide," before he bowed out, leaving the stage to The Straitjackets.
For a quartet of tunes, the Nashville outfit let their high-powered surf-inspired roar. After covers of the theme song from "The Magnificent Seven" and "Venus," Lowe returned.
When he returned, Lowe performed "House for Sale," an R&B-infliuenced ballad that manages to be both touching and biting.
During this section, Lowe played his one American hit, 1979's "Cruel to Be Kind," followed by the evening's closers: "When I Write the Book," which he recorded with his band Rockpile, and "I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock 'n' Roll)."
With a sound that mines the intersection of early rock 'n' roll, R&B and country, Lowe's songwriting skills are perfectly matched with his voice and his no-nonsense approach.
After an hour-long break, Costello and his band took the stage, and the front of house sound was surprisingly ill-defined and muddy considering how much better Lowe and Los Straitjackets' mix had been.
Joining Costello were his longtime sidemen, keyboardist Steve Nieve and drummer Pete Thomas — who were two-thirds of The Attractions — and bassist Davey Faragher, who is a pretty stalwart Costello collaborator by now, too. On guitar for the tour is guest Charlie Sexton.
(In a couple days, the outfit will also be joined by a horn section, but that trio was not present in Milwaukee.)
Costello is touring in support of his latest record, The Boy Named If, released earlier this year. It is his 32nd studio LP, though he only touched on it glancingly here. From the record he performed only "Magnificent Hurt" and "What If I Can't Give You Anything But Love?"
Instead, more it seems than at any other show so far on the tour, Costello focused on his classic material — to the delight of the audience — playing only a couple other recent tunes, like "Hetty O'Hara Confidential" and "Newspaper Pane."
Otherwise, it was a romp through favorites like "Radio, Radio," "Pump It Up," "Everyday I Write the Book," "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes," "Lipstick Vogue," "Mystery Dance," "No Action" and so on.
He played "Accidents Will Happen" mostly as a duet with Nieve playing piano, though the band kicked in at the end for the refrain.
On an extended "Watching the Detectives," Nieve played melodica, conjuring Augustus Pablo, and Costello tinkered with a device that added a dub-style delay on his voice.
Costello's pitch-perfect vintage R&B falsetto at the end of "Alison" brought down the house, but his vocal approach was not always crowd-pleasing.
Always known to tinker with arrangements of his songs onstage, on Saturday night he didn't do that as much as he riffed extensively on the melodies and phrasing, frustrating the fans that might have hoped to sing along.
Drummer Thomas hasn't lost a step and is still one of the best drummers in rock and roll, and he forms a tight rhythm section with Faragher. Sexton provided color and flavor, plus traded solos with Costello, and Nieve has always been a key (sorry) element in Elvis' sound.
Ever the showman, Costello chatted a bit between songs, telling a Springsteen story he's been sharing nightly before "Radio, Radio," but also mentioned that his first U.S. tour skipped Milwaukee for a gig at the dearly departed Bunky's in Madison instead. (Costello's memory failed him here, as he did play in Milwaukee, at the Electric Ballroom on Dec. 1, 1977, during his first U.S. tour. You can see a photo from that show here. His Bunky's shows — there were two — were on Nov. 29.)
He also couldn't resist good-humoredly pointing out the swarm of lakefront insects, attracted surely by the spotlight, that danced around his head all night, in his word, "kissing" him.
If the decision to end the set with the biting and relatively unknown "Blood & Hot Sauce" instead of the blistering, optimistic and crowd-pleasing "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" (which he played second to last), baffled some, for the most part the audience was along for the entire ride.
After a set that ran slightly more than 90 minutes, there was no encore.
Earlier in the day, Paul Cebar Tomorrow Sound played on the same stage, which was appropriate as the veteran frontman has a connection to Lowe, who was known to be a big fan of Cebar's group The R&B Cadets.
In 1986, Lowe produced "Strong and Lasting Kind," a song on The Cadets' LP, Top Happy.
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