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This gig was the last in a series which saw Elvis Costello sell out the Shepherd's Bush Empire each Friday during November. Reunited with his original backing band, The Attractions, he ploughed through a set which heavily promoted The Very Best of..., their recently released greatest hits package.
His fans, who have lately been starved of anything new to match the calibre of Costello's back catalogue, fell on this feast of old favourites like piranhas in a feeding frenzy.
Elvis and the Attractions, well turned-out and dapper as always, played like men possessed.
The band sounded so fresh it was hard to believe that they first got together in 1977.
It would be easy to be cynical about the motives behind a forty year old returning to the band and the hits of his angrier and younger days.
Costello, however, has flown in the face of fashion so many times it would be harsh to accuse him of merely playing safe now.
If he was just going through the motions, he didn't show it. The audience were beyond caring. By the time the sticky sentiments of the ballad "Alison" were sung, there was barely a dry eye left in the place.
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