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It would have been a Kodak moment with an Alberta spin if anybody had thought to bring a camera: the middle of the Canadian Final Rodeo in 1978 and the lobby of the CFR's host hotel in downtown Edmonton.
Last call concluded, the rodeo stars have downed their beers and are streaming out of the bar and into the hotel lobby where they walk right into a sight that must have seemed stranger to them than a two-headed calf: the narrow ties and spiked hair of Elvis Costello and the Attractions.
Costello was relating the story of his previous visit to Edmonton to a media conference in a tent at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival.
“I periodically get a bad fear of flying,” he told the assembled reporters. “You know that if a lot of nuns or a basketball team get on a plane I’m usually in a big hurry to get off.”
Wake Up Canada
The fear hit him hard in Thunder Bay during the infamous “Wake Up Canada Tour” in the fall of 1978.
“I just thought Thunder Bay was too ominous a sounding place and I refused to fly,” remembered Costello. Next stop was Edmonton and sans aircraft he was left with the option of driving.
“It seemed like 4,000 miles and we did it non-stop with two drivers,” Costello recalled.
“We arrived at the hotel at three in the morning, the place was full of cowboys and it was in an absolute uproar. I don’t remember the show itself, but | sure remember our arrival.”
No doubt somewhere in rural Alberta, a couple of bronco busters still tell the tale around the campfire of draining a Pilsner and walking into some weird little English guy whose wardrobe in those days featured narrow ties and brightly-colored shoes.
The kinder, gentler and presumably less-afraid-of-flying Costello agreed to meet the Edmonton media prior to his Thursday evening solo appearance at the Folk Festival. Sporting an au courant Van Dyke beard and wearing black slacks, blue jacket and vest, white shirt and brown shell glasses, Costello was attentive to questions during his 30-minute media scrum
His return to Edmonton was prompted by an invitation from the Folk Fest and a recommendation from a few of his musical friends who’ve appeared here in the past
“I checked with Donald Lunney and June Tabor and T-Bone Burnett who had all played here in the past and they all told me it was a great place, so here I am.”
Coming off a five-night stand with The Attractions in New York City in which he “largely” performed new material, Costello jetted into Edmonton for his Thursday night performance and then was headed out the following day en route to Dublin, Ireland to reunite with The Attractions and begin recording a new album
“As much as I'd like to see some of the other artists I’m literally beginning the new album on Monday so I can’t stay,” he apologized. The new album will be a collection of compositions Costello originally wrote for other artists.
“I hope to play some of them tonight so people in Edmonton will be the first people in Canada to hear them.”
Thus adding to the list of “firsts” Edmonton has supplied to the Elvis Costello career scrapbook. Song previews, cowboys, at least this time someone was sure to have a camera on-hand.
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