|
If anyone can pull off a solo show and make it sound so much more than just one guy and his guitar — and not even a round-the-neck harmonica holder or knee tambourines to fill out the sound — it's Elvis Costello.
The man is a master. He's done this sort of thing before, of course, at the Folk Fest, for one — headquarters for solo singer-songwriters and their guitars — so Sunday night's show at the Winspear Centre was no big stretch. The 55-year-old singer-songwriter put a slice of his storied and strange career on display in a fundraiser for the Fort Edmonton Foundation.
The show included classic songs about women ("Alison," "Veronica"), classic songs about self-loathing (like "Brilliant Mistake") and new material featuring both of the above that was just plain weird. His last record, Secret, Profane & Sugarcane — the one he made after he said he would never make any more records, or was that the last one? — seems to be an old-time country concept album of sorts, and the even more recent, presumably unrecorded stuff, follows suit nicely. And weirdly.
Elvis is no stranger to the strange, of course. Anyone who has collaborated with both Burt Bacharach and the Kronos Quartet can attest to that.
There in fact is no one else in the music business who has worked with such varied artists, gone in such different directions from all-out rock to delightful operettas. And let's not even mention his collaborations with Diana Krall. Too late, we did.
Sure, there were cheers when Elvis pulled off the familiar old stuff — like opening with "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes," much appreciated. As was his classic version of the Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," spliced with one of his own tunes.
But the newer material was brilliant. The whole show was. And I'm not just saying that because of what David Lee Roth said: "Rock critics like Elvis Costello because rock critics look like Elvis Costello." No rock critic could possibly get away with wearing the natty straw boater hat of the type Elvis sported last night. He looked like he was ready for a jolly row around Central Park lake with his sweetheart — in 1920.
Anyway, the new stuff included a tale of a performer who finds himself sharing the bill with the liquor sponsors, called "Down Among the Wine and Spirits." This was some of the lightest humour heard last night. He sang a chilling song about people who commit terrible crimes, his normally strident, desperate voice going soft as he uttered cryptic descriptions of death, war and betrayal.
He played what he claimed was his one and only Christmas song, "Bedlam," which is a twisted version of the baby Jesus story, likewise filled with disturbing images. That's the magic of Elvis. You can enjoy his unique voice, his unusual chord progressions and his wonderful acoustic guitar accompaniment — few people realize the guy is one hell of a guitar player — but his fans come for the clever, haunting wordplay. You have to listen carefully lest some gem pass you by. "I'm twice the foolish man I was before" is just tip of the iceberg of self-loathing genius.
Later on, Costello introduced a special guest — himself — before moving to a chair in front of another microphone setup whose EQ seemed specially tuned to sound like it came from the 1930s. The song fit the occasion. He played an old-time ragtime groove on what he claimed was an old guitar for another odd tale: this one about a cowboy singer who for some reason is touring Northern England in 1937, and is stuck in the rain at the Lancaster train station.
Elvis sang the tale of woe like he lived it himself, noting "there's no place for a half-cut cowboy in polite society." No one said we were living in a polite society these days, of course.
It's unclear if the show raised a lot of money for the Fort Edmonton Foundation — which is aiming to build a high-tech replica of the Capitol Theatre (home of the first "talkies" in Edmonton). Maybe about 1,000 people turned up to see Elvis Costello up close and alone. But there was no backing band, as mentioned, neither Attractions nor Imposters, so at least there's some savings there. And if anyone complained, I didn't hear it.
In some ways, a solo Elvis is better than Elvis with a band. You certainly couldn't say that about many other artists.
| 
