Record Mirror, May 10, 1980

Bibliography   72 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 UK & Ireland weeklies UK & Ireland magazines UK & Ireland newspapers US newspapers US rock magazines US music magazines US magazines US alternative weeklies European magazines European newspapers Canada  •  Mexico  •  Asia Australia  •  New Zealand South America  •  Africa Blogs  •  Fanzines  •  Books Online publications — Elvis Costello Metropol, Berlin Mike Nicholls Flourescent flashes in a slow neon dazzle distract sufficiently for Boy Wonder to sneak onstage at leisure. By the end of the last date of his German tour he stands accused of sure-footed scrappiness. Never cutting it like he does on record, a second guitarist has been esightial for some time now. Only typically it's by accident rather than design. Steve Naive's, actually. The organist's involvement in a LA car crash caused him to climb down, his replacement at a day's notice being The Rumour's Martin Belmont. Which means there's two axemen hitting bum note after bum chord and it's all quite amusing. For having missed the preliminary primal assault of the new wave, Costello appears to be re-writing his roots. Elvis is a punk rocker now-ow-ow! Qbviously we should predict the unpredictable. In the same way as each album has turned a sudden new corner, stage experiments are on the menu, too. He rattled the keys for Sonny Boy Williamson's "Help Me" early on, showing a penchant for unearthing some of the more obscure R&B items. Other key minutes included the dual guitar isometrics halfway through "Watching The Detectives," which at last realised some of the song's more melodramatic potential. Until then most of the numbers chased each other in an almost unpalatably raw one-dimensional thrash. "The Beat," "Lip Service" and "Lipstick Vogue" were indistinguishable to the point of interchangeability whilst "Oliver's Army" was churned out with all the finesse of a teleprinted pools check. Nevertheless, he almost redeemed himself with a stunning version of Peter Tosh's "Walk And Don't Look Back" which finally managed to introduce a little light and shade into the proceedings. Amidst the usual encores was a spirited "Pump It Up," Costello bopping around for the first time though still not getting to grips with the poor sound and instrumental clumsiness that continued making the songs sound identical. Then again he may have been deliberately perverse, stripping dawn arrangements and opting for immediacy as opposed to the Armed Forces subtleties which failed in its shallow attempt to earmark the American market. Whatever, he's still compulsive watching with half-baked punk pretensions being preferable to numerous other fads, however coy they appear. Record Mirror, May 10, 1980 Mike Nicholls reviews Elvis Costello & The Attractions with Martin Belmont (without Steve Nieve), Wednesday, April 30, 1980, Metropol, Berlin, West Germany. Images File:1980-05-10 Record Mirror clipping.jpg Cover and clipping. Photo.

External links

• Wikipedia: Record Mirror