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Early during his show Wednesday night, June 28, at the Meadow Brook Amphitheatre, Elvis Costello recalled his first appearance there, in the summer of 1982.
The difference between the two performances was staggering.
Back then Costello was five years but already seven albums into a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame career, still full of earnest bile and chip-on-the-shoulder urgency — a man with something to prove, in other words, and he did so with a blistering show that night. The urgency was still there on Wednesday, but decades of dizzying musical diversity have allowed Costello to deploy it on his terms and in whatever direction he wants, for better or worse.
And this time out he wanted to play guitar — a lot of it.
So Wednesday’s two-hour, 20-song show — spanning his 1977 debut “My Aim is True” to last year’s “The Boy Named If” — was something of a six-string orgy for Costello and, to a lesser extent, Charlie Sexton, the veteran journeyman and Bob Dylan band member who’s serving as a “special guest” with Costello’s Imposters this summer. Selections such as his 1983 hit “Everyday I Write the Book,” “Almost Blue,” “What If I Can’t Give You Anything But Love?,” “Come the Meantimes” and the show-closing “I Want You” were twisted into nuanced, meandering opuses, at times beyond recognition and often well beyond the point he was trying to make. Costello hit on some good ideas during these forays, especially in “We’re All Cowards Now,” but there was a frustrating formlessness that ran counter to his inarguable stature as one of pop music’s most accomplished composers.
The always solid rhythm section of drummer Pete Thomas and bassist Davey Faragher (playing several songs on upright) kept everything afloat, but the approach notably sidelined keyboardist Steve Nieve, the great foil and colormaster in Costello’s canon. Nieve did, however, shine during a mostly voice-and-piano rendition of “Accidents Will Happen,” with the rest of the Imposters coming in for the song’s dramatic ending.
Costello and company gave “The Boy Named If” its due with performances of “Magnificent Hurt” and a rocking “Farewell, OK” in addition to “What If I Can’t Give You Anything But Love?,” and he dug deep into his catalog for songs such as “Hetty O’Hara Confidential” and “Like Licorice On Your Tongue.” Costello also acknowledged Motown influences by slipping a bit of the Supremes/Temptations single “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” into the end of “Alison” and paid tribute to his late friend and collaborator Burt Bacharach with a snippet of “I Say a Little Prayer” during “I Want You.”
Costello didn’t ignore the classics, either, opening with a one-two punch of “Mystery Dance” and “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” and sprinkling “Radio Radio,” “Lipstick Vogue,” “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea,” “Pump It Up” and “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” into the evening.
The latter was surprisingly done without opener Nick Lowe, who wrote the song for his band Brinsley Schwarz and also produced Costello’s first six albums. Lowe’s 40-minute set with the wrestling-masked Los Straitjackets was the antithesis of the headliner’s, focused on songcraft and tight performances of favorites such as “So It Goes,” “Ragin’ Eyes,” “Half a Boy and Half a Man” and, of course, “Cruel to Be Kind,” while Los Straitjackets offered mid-set renditions of its own “Kawanga!” and Elmer Berntein’s theme from “The Magnificent Seven.” As the designated warm-up, however, it felt like Lowe and company were laying back and pulling their punches on Wednesday, missing the fire they’ve demonstrated in other metro area shows, including last August’s at the Magic Bag in Ferndale.
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