Boston Phoenix, October 28, 1986: Difference between revisions
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The chilly sidewalks outside the Orpheum were crowded on October 16 before the first of the three Elvis Costello (Declan who?) shows — all of them sold out for weeks. But diligent politicos were arduously hawking the Revolutionary Worker, hoping to snare lumpen fans of one of the few rockers with both an articulate political turn and a sizable audience. This turned out to be an odd bit of ancillary merchandise, because Costello was mounting quite an unconventional idea of subversion that night. The stage set resembled a combination low-rent circus and no-cover nightclub: you had the Sensational Spinning Songbook — a multicolored pinwheel with the titles of vintage and recent Costello songs and one or two covers stenciled on the segments — with a go-go cage for dancers off to one side and a mock cocktail lounge complete with little black-and-white TV and Gatorade on the portable bar stand. After an irritating hour delay, Costello waded through the standing front rows toward the stage; he was already in full flight as Napoleon Dynamite, the unctuous but impassioned master of ceremonies gasping that, with the help of the Attractions, gyrater "Trixie Lafayette of Atlantic City," and sleazy assistant [[Xavier Valentine]], he was about to orchestrate a singular bit of audience participation. Plucked from the mob up front, you spun the wheel, you got a song, you danced in the cage, you reclined at the bar and sipped glucose juice. | The chilly sidewalks outside the Orpheum were crowded on October 16 before the first of the three Elvis Costello (Declan who?) shows — all of them sold out for weeks. But diligent politicos were arduously hawking the Revolutionary Worker, hoping to snare lumpen fans of one of the few rockers with both an articulate political turn and a sizable audience. This turned out to be an odd bit of ancillary merchandise, because Costello was mounting quite an unconventional idea of subversion that night. The stage set resembled a combination low-rent circus and no-cover nightclub: you had the Sensational Spinning Songbook — a multicolored pinwheel with the titles of vintage and recent Costello songs and one or two covers stenciled on the segments — with a go-go cage for dancers off to one side and a mock cocktail lounge complete with little black-and-white TV and Gatorade on the portable bar stand. After an irritating hour delay, Costello waded through the standing front rows toward the stage; he was already in full flight as Napoleon Dynamite, the unctuous but impassioned master of ceremonies gasping that, with the help of the Attractions, gyrater "Trixie Lafayette of Atlantic City," and sleazy assistant [[Xavier Valentine]], he was about to orchestrate a singular bit of audience participation. Plucked from the mob up front, you spun the wheel, you got a song, you danced in the cage, you reclined at the bar and sipped glucose juice. | ||
The Napoleon Dynamite Show was the perfect pop/antipop vehicle: the former furious young punk (now battered King of America) and his band became both seers and spectacles, resourceful virtuosos and human jukeboxes, wry iconoclasts and music-hall cornballs. Costello hammed his way though his role with such needling wit and relish that if ''Let's Make a Deal'' ever spins off a rock version, we have the ideal host already in rehearsal — announcing, "Now we're going to do 'The Angels Want To Wear My Red ''Sox''!' " | The Napoleon Dynamite Show was the perfect pop/antipop vehicle: the former furious young punk (now battered King of America) and his band became both seers and spectacles, resourceful virtuosos and human jukeboxes, wry iconoclasts and music-hall cornballs. Costello hammed his way though his role with such needling wit and relish that if ''Let's Make a Deal'' ever spins off a rock version, we have the ideal host already in rehearsal — announcing, "Now we're going to do 'The Angels Want To Wear My Red ''Sox''!'," leading the audience in an impromptu rendition of "Happy Birthday" for a fan in the balcony, starting a pass at Ms. Lafayette's posterior but reconsidering with a demented flinch. | ||
The nonstop between-song theatrics, the affectionate demolition of show biz, and a ripping, good-hearted guest spin by [[Bill Walton]] were about all the first half of the show had going for it. A few numbers ("Lip Service," for example) worked up bumptious vigor, but more often the devices of the Napoleon Dynamite Show were Outshining the deliveries. Costello dispensed with shadow-playing during the "commercial break," in which he played solo guitar and took requests. Some of these were apt (eliciting a particularly anguished "The Only Flame in Town"), but the MC did even better when he turned off the request light and chose his own: "Little Palaces" (wish a caustic tale about a town made entirely of Cadbury chocolate), "The Deportee Bar," and "American Without Tears." His stark guitar runs and his harsh, unwavering declamations turned the selections into Childe Ballads for the electronic Dark Age. | The nonstop between-song theatrics, the affectionate demolition of show biz, and a ripping, good-hearted guest spin by [[Bill Walton]] were about all the first half of the show had going for it. A few numbers ("Lip Service," for example) worked up bumptious vigor, but more often the devices of the Napoleon Dynamite Show were Outshining the deliveries. Costello dispensed with shadow-playing during the "commercial break," in which he played solo guitar and took requests. Some of these were apt (eliciting a particularly anguished "The Only Flame in Town"), but the MC did even better when he turned off the request light and chose his own: "Little Palaces" (wish a caustic tale about a town made entirely of Cadbury chocolate), "The Deportee Bar," and "American Without Tears." His stark guitar runs and his harsh, unwavering declamations turned the selections into Childe Ballads for the electronic Dark Age. | ||
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If his earlier and later nights with the Attractions proved that working with his regular band brings out the rocker instinct in Elvis Costello (not to mention his spleen), the expansive show on October 17 with the Confederates made it clear why working within the Attractions' strictures doesn't satisfy his broader moods or his knowledge of pop that predates garage rock. Splitting his time between two solo segments and two sets with a band headed by ex-Presley guitarist [[James Burton]] and bassist [[Jerry Scheff]], Costello gave us performances rather than the labored renderings that this most literate of rockers has often settled for. Literacy and, yes, supremely singable melodies have always come easy to Costello, perhaps too easy; it's only recently, in his frequent solo performances and the patient ''King of America'', that his singing has been able to support the ambitious songs to which he has aspired since ''Trust''. One of the delights of this second evening, the richest and most complex of any performance I've seen Costello give and probably the show of the year, was hearing him reclaim songs that had been lost to fussy arrangements on record. The solo version of "The Deportees Club" opened you up to the cruel deception of its deceived immigrants; and when he closed out "Shipbuilding" by plunking a solitary string and softly repeating the phrase "Diving for pearls," he imbued the song with a terror it never possessed in the fluffed jazz setting of ''Punch the Clock''. Even Costello couldn't save the wounded-water-buffalo harmonies of Aimee Mann and Jules Shear as the trio tried to make emotional sense out of her "[[What About Love]]" — but then, he never claimed to be a miracle man. | |||
The long show manifested an underlying melancholy — ''King of America'', after all, is a record about crushed hopes — broken up by shards of warped humor from Costello, by the nimble grace of Burton's picking, and by the beleaguered, time-honored blues catharsis that remained the show's touchstone. Costello seemed to be scavenging pop history for antecedents to his dejected romantic scenarios and slangy putdowns, as if he needed to link himself to a tradition that stretches far into the past — surely that's one reason he's working with the Confederates. A solo "Alison" was capped by the addition of some advice stolen from Joe Tex: "The love you save may be your own." Percy Sledge's "It Tears Me Up" and James Carr's "Pouring Water on a Drowning Man" (which is becoming a Costello standard live) are complaints — the first pathetic, the second clownish — from a romantic loser whom Costello has emulated in his originals; both became churning workouts that brought out his most pointed, soulful vocalizing as he shied away from the hammy histrionics that have done him in on earlier live versions of R&B material. Out of any number of stunning moments, one sticks in the mind: on "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," a song that can stand as a manifesto for this phase of his career, Costello coaxed the crowd to sing along to its signature riff. The audience wasn't sure what he was asking for as he gestured, but the sound of its humming slowly rose, as if it had known what it wanted to sing and only needed him to draw it out, to share the gift of speaking clearly that he had displayed all night. | |||
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Revision as of 20:31, 14 February 2014
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