|
ALBANY, N.Y. — Elvis Costello's name beamed prominently from the marquee of The Palace, a grand old theatre anchoring the state capital's downtown, while fans with and without tickets started gathering for the show inside.
The street corner below the marquee was a crush of desperate ticket seekers paying as much as $50 for a seat that originally sold for $17 (the show had been sold out for a month). As the few available tickets were being auctioned to the highest bidder, a car full of teenagers rounded the corner in front of the theatre.
"Elvis is dead!" one kid yelled from the car. The street-corner crowd paid him little attention.
Which was probably just as well. Because three hours later, those who were fortunate enough to gain admission to The Palace left knowing Elvis Costello is very much alive these days.
Riding a lofty wave of praise for his new album, Spike (hailed as the True Masterpiece in a long line of Costello masterpieces), the former Declan MacManus is approaching the masses with the same spark, venom and sense of purpose that shot him to prominence in North America 12 years ago.
Costello, no longer supported by his fiery band, The Attractions, is taking matters into his own hands this time around. The current U.S. tour (15 dates, mostly at universities in the northeast) is simply Elvis, a guitar, and a showman's bag of tricks.
From such a bare assemblage comes one of Costello's most convincing triumphs: freed of the slick instrumentation of past efforts, Costello threw his strengths — sharp pop hooks and precise lyrics to the front.
The effort placed Costello's earliest numbers (he reached all the way back to a 1977 country gem, "Radio Sweetheart") comfortably side-by-side with the more intricate pop, jazz and folk of Spike.
And the audience that has proved fickle enough to pull Costello from the height of arena-rock superstardom at the start of the decade to a level where, by his own admission, he is short of cash, wasn't prepared to let him down this time.
When Costello ripped into the call-and-response refrain of "Mystery Dance" (about a young man's futile backseat exploits), the audience chanted along with him. The entire theatre was eerily silent for a lengthy reading of the caustic "I Want You"; as Costello slowly unfurled the tale of a mate's infidelity, he undressed the arrangement until his alternating whispers and screams had drained all of the considerable vitriol from the number.
Never one for subtleties when dealing with Americans, Costello, an Englishman who now calls Ireland home — couldn't help turning a jaundiced eye to the red, white and blue. But the stinging sarcasm of old had a more whimsical feel, as he cut into TV and Hollywood.
Costello revealed his playfulness during "God's Comic," in which the creator reclines on a waterbed, reads trash novels and listens to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem (". . .though I prefer the one about my son," he laments). Costello used the opportunity to take a poke at American tabloid TV, saying Geraldo Rivera would have the gracelessness to interview God as if He was Charles Manson.
"Thing is," Costello remarked, "God didn't grow up in a Puerto Rican street gang."
The extended monologue was a counterpoint to a rather low-key opening set by sometime Costello producer Nick Lowe. Like Costello, Lowe played to arena crowds at the start of the decade (with guitar legend Dave Edmunds in Rockpile) soon after his "Cruel To Be Kind" scraped the underside of the U.S. Top 10 in 1979, but he saw his star fall rapidly.
Several years older than Costello (who remains youthful at 34), the silver-haired Lowe performed a charming and unfortunately brief set that included oft-covered favorite "I Knew the Bride" and concluded with a duet with Costello on "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding," which Lowe wrote 15 years ago.
Casual as ever, Lowe pointed out that he has a new album set for release — with the help of guitarist Ry Cooder, pianist Paul Carrack and drummer Jim Keltner — "sometime or another ... I don't know when."
The air of informality hung in The Palace — a well-appointed venue where Harry Houdini played one of his final shows — when Costello took the stage near the end of the night as his greasy alter ego, Napoleon Dynamite. Dressed in tacky lounge jacket and brandishing a devil's pitchfork, Costello/Dynamite greeted the crowd with a disdainful "Hello, sinners." (To which the crowd responded "Hello, Monsignor Dynamite.")
Dynamite directed on-stage participants to the Broken Heart of Deadly Sins, a six-foot satin heart from which audience members picked a sin (among them: "Sincerity," "Getting Caught," and "Getting Caught Again") and selected an appropriate song.
Perhaps to prove he wasn't all gimmick, the bespectacled singer tucked some heartfelt cover versions into his own tunes.
The Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" became the bridge of Costello's "New Amsterdam," and Van Morrison's "Jackie Wilson Says" concluded "Radio Sweetheart."
The most glittering display came during the concert finale, when Costello — in his only electric number of the night — turned his own "Pump It Up" into a rap that blended with Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues," Prince's "Sign 'O' the Times" and The Beatles' "Revolution."
With that closing and all that came before it, Costello provided hope that he might yet meet — or even exceed — the heavy expectations that greeted him on his arrival in 1977.
| 
